


Journey Through Europa

by asparagusmama



Series: Meddling with Time [1]
Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio), Doctor Who: Virgin New Adventures - Various Authors
Genre: Alternative Earth, Classic Era 21st century future history, Multi, Parallel Earth, Parallel Universe, Political Allegory, Post-Brexit, The TARDIS’ pov, Time's Champion moves in mysterious ways, Virgin New Adventures 21st century future history, alternative universe, and she answers back, awesome hijabis, combined with reality, first person POV, hijabi companion, hijabis, imaginary companions keeping the Doctor company, in the Doctor's head, kickarse hijabis, or is she a splinter Clara, own incarnation of the Rani, please check all chapters for trigger warnings, please check chapters for trigger warnings, please please check trigger warnings, potential theory of matter transference, the Doctor buys a fluffy toy rabbit, the Doctor hugs the fluffy toy rabbit, the Doctor talks to his fluffy toy rabbit, world building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-09-28
Packaged: 2018-12-18 00:02:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 87,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11862429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asparagusmama/pseuds/asparagusmama
Summary: 2023. An Alterative Earth or an altered timeline? A united European government deals with refugees arriving by boat both across la Manche and the Med along with environmental disaster and crop failures due to lack of sunlight. Meanwhile much of the Middle East and North Africa is a burning desert. Across the Atlantic Canada and Mexico are forced into alliance as the USA descends into a far-right Fundamentalist fascist state. Australia and New Zealand deal with increasing rises in temperature. However, Africa, with China’s support, starts progressing fast. China itself is determined to win the space-race and conquer the solar system within the next decade. India, however, already have a manned Martian mission in flight. China is determined to overtake them at all costs...The Doctor materialises the TARDIS in Paris instead of Beijing to take his companion home. That’s all he remembers when he wakes up in the mud somewhere in Europe. In a world with no planes, he must cross-continents to rescue the TARDIS and his companion, having been marked as the lowest of the low, and only one means left at his disposal to support himself.





	1. Waking

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a dystopian alternative near future, and contains references and descriptions of environmental devastation, war, terrorism, death, grief, migration and refugees, people trafficking, prostitution, rape and dub-con, drug use and violence and hunger. Also characters express racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic, homophobic and sexist views or describe being victims of such hate and use offensive language. Each chapter will contain appropriate trigger-warnings in the endnotes of the chapter. Please check each chapter with endnotes if any of the above could trigger you.
> 
> Every time the Doctor remembers a companion; friend or lover, the ship is tagged so no one gets offended. I hope in doing so I don’t disappoint anyone. If a companion or other person is tagged in characters, they will appear.

“Hey? You okay? Did your pimp do that?”

The Doctor opened his eyes. He saw sky, deep, dark sky, it was not quite the darkness of an overcast, cloudy, day nor that of twilight or dusk, but somewhere in-between, and a dark outline of a head and face silhouetted against the oppressive skyline. A light drizzle fell on his face and he smelt dust and sulphur in the air. He also hurt – everywhere. He closed his eyes and did a quick inventory – split lip, bruising on face over eyes and cheeks and forehead, cuts too – probably looked awful! - three cracked ribs, a fractured left ulna, painful bruising to torso and internally, over kidneys, one failing. He shut himself down and began repairs on the kidney, urgently. He hoped the person behind the voice was kind as they sounded...

Wait?

Pimp?!

And was that... English or French? Why wasn’t the TARDIS translating properly?

He needed a healing coma for the kidney, but was in no immediate risk of regenerating, so he woke himself up and snapped his eyes open.

“What?”

She was light brown skinned, with dark brown eyes hid behind red framed specs, her face framed by a black scarf tied tightly over her forehead and under her chin. It meant something on Earth, but the Doctor couldn’t remember what. Not fashion. Deeper than culture. It had a name. Wimple? Was that it? No, wrong era!

“I asked if you were okay?”

“Oh, you know, fine, of course...”

“You’re English?”

“Well, no...” he was confused. Had she been speaking in French while he answered in English? But she was English, that was an English accent, Yorkshire, Lancashire, something northern. England was big on accents, they changed every 50 miles or so. Fascinating. He used to drive around in Bessie, documenting it. When he was bored and fed up at being Alistair’s pet alien and wasn’t needed. He seemed to remember sampling the local ales and cheeses as he went. He’d been one for fine wining and dining in those days.

A long, long, time ago. Centuries and regenerations ago. He’d been so pompous and self-righteous and innocent in those days.

“I suppose I must be,” he replied in French. “And no, I’m not alright.”

“I don’t think you are. You sound English. It’s okay. I won’t judge if you sold yourself to get out of the Jungle. But you’re white. I suppose the 2021 laws made being gay illegal, so...”

The Doctor struggled to sit up. She put her hand on his shoulder. “Careful. You need looking after. Did your pimp do that? Did he dump you? I’m a doctor by the way. Well, was, before the UnBritish Acts... Dr. Hussein. But you can call me Ayesha.” She smiled.

The Doctor struggled; he’d learnt English in 1870 and French in 1740, so language drifts were going to be a problem. He reached for the TARDIS, but he could barely feel her. She pushed some artron energy his way, and a little of her translation matrix, but he sensed she was in pain, something was blocking her. She was still on Earth, but so far away.

“Firstly, I’m the Doctor. Thank you for helping me,” he forced a grateful beam. “Secondly, I don’t have a pimp. I’ve never had a pimp. Well, there was that one time centuries ago in my sixth incarnation with Glitz, but I try not to think about that, and the money was needed to save... Never mind,” he stopped himself as she put her hand on his forehead, expecting a fever. Of course, he was cold, too cold to be alive for a human. A sick Time Lord drops a temperature in a fever to fight illness and injury, not raises it, and he was already so cold, having spent the night unconscious on the street, in the constant damp and drizzle. He looked up. He was lying on a concrete track way, long in need of repair, on the side on a field. As far as the eye could see there were old shipping containers, battered caravans, lorries, cars, and tents. There were so many tents. And people, so many people, some walking about, some sitting around fires. “And thirdly, where am I?”

“You’re in the New Jungle, Calais end.”

“What? I was in Brussels, at the Embassy, and... wait, why are you determined I’m in need of the services of a pimp? Eh? What is that about? How did I get here? And why are you living in a refugee camp? What has happened? You said UnBritish Acts? They very phrase is about as un British as you can get. When am I?”

While he was speaking, Ayesha had been doing obs and she replied softly and gently, “Well Doctor, I don’t know where or when you are from, but whatever you are, you are very cold, and I hazard from your bp and oxygen sats, that is not good for you any more than a human. You’re injured and you need treatment and hydration. Can you manage to stand?”

“You’re quite brilliant, aren’t you Ayesha,” the Doctor said happily, beaming up an insane grin at her. He then groaned in pain as he tried to stand. With a struggle, the tiny woman managed to get him upright and leaning on her and they staggered together off the road and into the mud and crowds of the camp.

“How far?” the Doctor muttered through gritted teeth after a few hundred metres.

“Not much further, my friend and our children have a container in the next row.”

“Dr Ayesha,” a man called. He was black skinned and tall, his temples greying. He spoke with a Bristolean accent. “Need help?” and without waiting for a reply he came the other side of the Doctor and put his arm around him, supporting his weight.

“Thank you,” the Doctor muttered before he knew no more.

 

*

 

When the Doctor woke it was dark. He was lying on a pile of quilts and blankets, with another over him. He could see a dim light a few metres from him, and could hear a child reciting something musical in Classical Arabic. Qu’ran. Of course! Dr Hussein. That was what the scarf was. A hijab. He opened his eyes. He was covered with a rim of frost from his healing coma, but his kidney was fully functional. His ribs too had healed. He could feel a bandage across his chest, and a crude plaster of Paris cast on his left lower arm. He hoped his face looked a bit better.

He moved his head to the side and saw Dr Hussein’s face lit by a greenish glow. She was reading on her phone by its light in the dark.

“You’re awake,” she said, and moved to strike a match and light an old-fashioned calour gas camping light. The Doctor was struck by the incongruity of a poster of a blue man with four arms and the head of an elephant.

“Ganesh? But you are Muslim?”

“You seem remarkably well informed about our silly tribal beliefs for an alien,” Ayesha quipped.

“I am, aren’t I? Well, I get about...” the Doctor began to babble, but his mouth was so dry. “Might I have a glass of water,” he whispered, instead.

“Nadia,” she called out, “can you get our patient some water.”

“It’s our last bottle, Auntie Naveen’s not back from the water trip,” a child of about ten or eleven replied. The same child who had been reciting, the Doctor guessed.

“The Doctor is our patient and our guest, Nadia. You can have the last milkshake if you are thirsty.”

“No, I don’t wouldn’t dream of imposing...”

“Hush now,” Ayesha said, plumping the cushions and helping him to sit up. A girl in jeans and a jumper with her black hair in a ponytail appeared and handed him the water. She stared at him a little. The Doctor smiled.

“Go do your homework now, while the tablet’s battery lasts,” Ayesha said.

“You just don’t want me to listen!”

“I don’t want you to leave Sidesh and Asraf alone for long.”

Nadia rolled her eyes and sighed and stomped off to the other end of the container.

The Qu’ranic recitation began again. The Doctor realised it couldn’t have been the girl child, as it came from outside. He turned his head again and saw a silhouette of another child sitting on the opening of the container, lit up by a fire burning just outside.

“That’s Hamza, my eldest. We live with my old school friend, Naveen, and her baby son, Sidesh. My husband was arrested when my youngest was born, for acts to incite terrorism. It had been a difficult birth, and he thanked God in Arabic for the safe delivery. The cow of the midwife reported him. I don’t like to think about... since they brought back the death penalty... Naveen’s husband was killed in the Patriot Riots when she was pregnant. We found each other here last year. She’s a nurse, so we try to run a little clinic. Medicine Sans Frontiers and the EuroCombine Services are so over subscribed. And she’s also a Hindu. We rub along. After all, our ancestors would have lived side by side in poverty in India, accepting each other’s path to God.”

“Wait? Just wait a minute... Are you saying that Britain is a fascist state? No no no! That’s not right! It’s not meant to be... when are we?”

“2023. Do you travel in time? Question for question, Mr Man With Two Hearts and a mean core temperature impossibly low and spooky healing abilities.”

“Yes. I’m a Time Lord. And I thought my TARDIS, my time and space machine, was in Paris, but I can’t sense her, she must be somewhere much further away...”

“Paris, you said you had been in Brussels, at an Embassy...?”

“I was. But it’s your turn. Focus Doctor, focus on the small things!” he hit his forehead for emphasis.

“Careful, you’ll make the cut bleed again.”

The Doctor looked at his hand. It should have stopped bleeding, “I heal fast...”

“I know, but with a ruptured kidney and broken ribs, one about to perforate your lung, I suspect your body was busy.” Ayesha smiled.

“Pimp. Twice you asked if my pimp did this? If a pimp is what I think it is, I’m not struggling am I, linguistically? Someone who makes money from others prostituting themselves?”

Ayesha blushed a little, but nodded.

“Why would you think that? Apart from my dashing good looks, nice suit, and great hair, of course?” he smiled back, but found himself almost blushing too, very unlike him. He didn’t often indulge in sex or sexual relationships with humans, but he had recently, hadn’t he, and... the Doctor’s mind shied away, skittering around the memory. It couldn’t be why he was here, could it?

Wait! Of course not. They had got to Yu too! He had to get back to Brussels, then he had to find his TARDIS, and...

Ayesha picked up his left arm and pulled back the sleeve of his pinstripe suit. “This tattoo. And the chip under it.” She picked up her phone, an old Apple 7, and put it to the tattoo of a black rose. An app activated. “You’ve been beaten up, tagged as a prostitute, and dumped in the New Jungle. Now, why would someone in EuroCombine or the Embassy you were at, do that to an alien? Which Embassy did you say it was? China, India, or Russia? Not the Americans, they were banned under the Russia-Euro Combine Act last year.”

“Someone who knew who I was, who wanted my TARDIS. Someone who probably sent someone in my path to snare me,” he looked up, startled, his eyes widening. He answered himself,

“The Chinese?

“Stupid stupid stupid Doctor! Yu betrayed me!”

The Doctor brought his knees to his chest and put his head down, hugging himself and the blanket.


	2. Walking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning below

The Doctor stayed a second night, giving his body the best chance of recovery, trying to find where history deviated from recorded time. Yes, the European Union was due to combine further, the world split into three, then two, power blocks that would slide from competition to a cold and sometimes hot war. The competition would spur on the first great leap – space stations, moonbases, Martian colonies, sleeper ships to the star Proxima to seek new life. All of that seemed to be happening on schedule, just without the financial centre of the capitalist planet no longer in its historical home and one country missing from EuroCombine and ESA in a big way. Not only that, all its people of colour along with foreigners of any colour, had been persecuted and attacked to the point that there had been a mass exodus, a veritable Armada, like the Dunkirk evacuation and rescue in reverse – remaining Europeans, black African and West Indians, Indian sub continent and other Asians, all fleeing in any boat they could get and causing a migrant crisis bigger than the earlier southern Syrian refugee crisis on the eastern edge of the continent. Along with them fled the disabled, the sick, if they were able - their fate if they didn’t Naveen and Ayesha didn’t want to go into detail with children in their container home – trade unionists and charity workers, gypsies and Irish travellers, white Muslim converts, those married to non white or non British spouses, and gay men and lesbians, and trans people, all fleeing persecution and worse. The New Jungle Refugee Camp 1 stretched from Calais in the south to Ostend, New Jungle 2 along most of Holland’s cost, with a third camp in Denmark, mostly with Scottish refugees. Scotland itself was being held under martial law, its own parliament suspended and its MSPs under house arrest in Edinburgh.

As for the sky, the reason it was black and full of dust, the reason the rain fell dusty and black, the atmosphere choked, was the Icelandic explosions. Eco-terrorists had managed to trigger volcanic eruptions across Iceland. The result had taken out the entire island. Among the British refugees lived the last remaining Icelanders, those who had not been home or had managed to take to the sea. The Doctor remembered the threats of eco-terror destruction in the early twenty-first century so long ago in his own timeline; he had to become an impostor of an evil terrorist/businessman who had kept people in bunkers, believing it had happened. But it never actually did.

It was so wrong! He needed to find out where the split happened. And yet, how could he? He needed to find his TARDIS first and foremost. It had been taken, and he could not sense her, she was blocked from him to the extent he couldn’t rely on her telepathic translation matrix. He hoped his French and English and Mandarin were enough to get him by. Despite the English extraditing themselves from Europe in a self-destructive fascist isolation policy, English remained the political and scientific language of Europe and he had no doubt China was his ultimate destination. He couldn’t remember why or how he had been beaten, whether he had been drugged at the Embassy, or what had happened, but the Embassy staff knew he was an alien and their government was determined at all costs to win the new space race.

Travelling would take time. The only way to travel was by train or sea. The devastation of the atmosphere made it impossible for any flight other than spaceflight, as well as triggering a terrible farming crisis and famine among the poor, and travelling by sea meant the crossing itself precarious due to the mass destruction of the whole island of Iceland. The EuroCombine was receiving aid from Canada, but relations with America meant that one ship in two, when it was safe to sail, was sunk, and Russia, who had recently attempted a corporate takeover of the European Council and Parliament, meant that rationing had started, and of course, Europeans were getting far more than the British, Icelanders, or the Syrians and Iraqis. Syria and Iraq both were a burning desert of nothing, contributing to the acceleration of global warming to the south, just as the explosion of Iceland was cooling the north exponentially. The Doctor had been to the twenty first century enough to know this was not how it should be. Dystopian and full of suspicions and wars and cold wars following terrorism, yes, but not this severe or chaotic. Britain wasn’t supposed to self-destruct; it was supposed to provide leadership in the Indo-European block later this century. Russia wasn’t supposed to walk in, it was supposed to be allied with China. China wasn’t supposed to be alone as the biggest super-power. The Martian Wars were less than a hundred years away, the Dalek invasion a little more than a hundred. With these changes, humans might not be ready...

However, he had to put the temporal infarction to one side for later. There were many pressing practical considerations to deal with. The Doctor realised that over the centuries he had become lazy, relying on his sonic screwdriver and psychic paper, companions both fearless and clever, or in detailed planning, properties, and finances already in place when he arrived. He had nothing but his wits, dulled by his lack of telepathic contact with the TARDIS, and by being drugged and beaten and not being able to remember what had happened, along with a slight fear that his companion – his lover – had betrayed him, that he had been a honey trap all the time for the Chinese to get their hands on his TARDIS.

His pockets had been emptied of all useful items, including his TARDIS key. He had no local currency, or any currency. On top of that, they had tagged and chipped him as the lowest of the low in society, someone ‘nice’ people would not want to help. Very clever of whomever did that. Did they know about him and Yu? Or did Yu betray him? He was gone a long time when he went to call his mother.

The Doctor had walked for miles along the coastal road, deep in thought, the Jungle on one side of him, deserted beaches and equally deserted and ruined ports on the other side. He passed the French entrance to the old sea tunnel and stood looking at it. It was collapsing in on itself. He knew the other side had been dynamited and the sea was claiming it. It was such a great engineering feat of its day and now it was destroyed by fear and hate. What on Earth had happened to his favourite nation of his favourite planet? The people of a tiny island who had invented so much, given so much, who had punched above their weight for so long, who alone withstood the evil of fascism in the dark days of the twentieth century – now an isolated fascist state, a global pariah, left behind and ignored, some of its best people living in containers and tents the wrong side of the channel. He would find where things had gone wrong and put it right, he had to. Time could unravel further and do more damage to not only the human timelines but also the whole of the Milky Way. There was no one else but he left to do so.

Unless it was the Time War finally affecting Earth’s history at last? Even locked, cause and effect were still being damaged, neverwhens and alsorans spiralling outward from the epicentre, a burning Gallifrey...

The Doctor put his hand to his face. It was wet with tears.

“You’re such a emo at times, you great skinny alien freak, pull yourself together!”

“You’re such a big girls blouse at times, Doctor. You’re so gay!”

“Crukking pull yourself together Professor, you sockbag of self pity!”

The Doctor smiled as he imagined Donna, Rose, and then Ace berate him. He made himself turn away and keep walking with an imaginary Barbara linking arms with him, “Come on Doctor, we’ll find the TARDIS and what is causing this, chin up.”

 

*

Eventually he found the checkpoint to the main road leading to Calais proper and its train station. He intended to start in Paris, back to the roof of the apartment block he’d materialised on.

“Do you have papers? Permission, ID, and passport, if you please. And tell us your business also,” a French policeman came out of a small hut as the Doctor approached the barrier. He could see a soldier, armed, sitting inside, eyeing him lazily, his gun across his lap, some bread, cheese and tomatoes on a plate, a glass of red wine in his hand. A second plate and glass was also on the table. The Doctor realised he was hungry. He had refused all but water from the doctor and nurse, not wishing to take precious food from their children.

“I’m sorry. I woke in the camp, injured, all my papers and money stolen.” The Doctor spoke softly, spreading his hands out. His sleeve rose up, revealing the tattoo.

“Nice suit,” the officer commented. “Good quality. Did your pimp dump you? Or perhaps your sugar daddy? If you can give us a name or a registered brothel we can chase your papers. Otherwise,” the policeman shrugged and made a ‘peh’ sound as he shrugged, “what can I do?”

The Doctor shrugged back, and as he was wondering what to say there came a sound of beeping and the revving of engines, as a small convoy of three mini buses with a company logo on the sides approached the checkpoint. The soldier sighed and put down his glass and climbed to his feet, gun lazily slung across his shoulder as the vans pulled to a stop. A smart Frenchwoman climbed out of the driver’s seat of the first one.

“My agency cleaners,” she said, waving a fat folder. “Passports and permission documents and work permits all for you monsieur.”

The police officer glanced to his military colleague already looking at passports and scrutinising the mostly dark-skinned British women in the first van and then to the Doctor, rolling his eyes towards the other side of the barrier and the bushes beside them. The Doctor grinned and gave a double thumb up sign before slipping under the barrier and into the bushes on the side of the road and continued his walking into town.

He walked for an hour before he came to the town, not Calais as he had expected, but the small town of Saint Valery sur Somme. It was now getting on for seven in the evening, and the cafes and bistros were busy with families and groups of friends and couples having an evening meal. The Doctor found himself salivating at all the smells of the food. He was so hungry. He didn’t think he’d eaten properly since he and Yu had had supper together before the Embassy Ball. If he didn’t eat soon he’d be compromised severely. His pockets were usually full of contingencies for such an occasion – bananas, apples, jelly babies. He stopped to get his breath at the corner of two streets over looking a quiet square with a fountain splashing quietly, three dolphins leaping from a stone sea, piped water squirting from each mouth. It would have once been beautiful, but the white stone was blackened and greasy from the fall out of the volcanic ash in the atmosphere and the water spread the black pumice dust across the dirty cobbles. He tried to imagine sun and warmth, instead of the darkened, oppressive sky, the sun low in the sky just an orange blur behind the volcanic dust. The Doctor shivered. What was he going to do now? He had believed he was walking towards Calais, where he could pick up a train to Paris, somehow to find a way on without paying.

“Good evening,” a voice said suddenly. “Are you working?”

The Doctor spun round, startled, his eyes widening. A man, perhaps in his sixties, in a non descript suit and rain coat, carrying an umbrella and laptop case was looking at him, smiling an empty, hungry. smile. He had thinning hair, a too large nose, and ferrety eyes. And a wedding ring.

It took the Doctor a few seconds before he remembered, his right hand moving to cover the tattoo on his left wrist. Of course, it wasn’t just a tattoo, it was a microchip, a chip which talked to a smartphone app, advertising his services, like a for rent   
Grindr. Thinking of such things, things only Jack could have told him, led the Doctor to think of Jack. Was he still on Earth, if so, was he still working for Torchwood? He doubted it. Getting rid of aliens with impunity for Queen and Empire was what Torchwood had been set up for back in 1879, and certainly the new Britain was getting rid of aliens, and having a very narrow definition of who wasn’t an alien.

Come to think of it, what of the royal family?

“Well? Are you monsieur?” the man asked again, his voice deep and gravely from too many Galois and rough, cheap, wine. He smelt of sour milk and cow dung, despite his suit. The smell made the Doctor feel queasy, but so did his hunger. His stomach rumbled. It started spit with the greasy, dusty, rain again.

“Ooh, well, not really. I’m new here. Sort of dumped. I’m trying to get to Paris. Do you have somewhere to go?” the Doctor mentally shouted at himself to shut up, but he was hungry.

“I have my truck. I’ve been in town for a meeting. I can take you to the train station afterwards, if you like.” The man smiled the same hungry, lascivious smile, his eyes raking up and down the Doctor’s skinny, tall, form.

“How much for what?” the Doctor asked, his eyes narrowing, trying not to wrinkle his nose with disgust.

“A blowjob monsieur. To go down on me.”

The Doctor put his hand to the back of his head. Why not? Surely he had done far worse in his long life. He had to find the TARDIS at all costs. He could barely feel her and it was getting worse all the time.

“How much is it for my train fare and a decent meal?”

From the way the old farmer smiled the Doctor realised he had probably cheapened himself considerably. Oh well, what did he need Euros for apart from getting to the TARDIS...?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Future history of Earth mostly extrapolated from Classic Who episodes ‘The Moonbase’, ‘The Enemy of the World’, ‘The Seeds of Death’ and ‘Warriors of the Deep’, along with Virgin New Adventure ‘Transit’ plus a lot of implied stuff from many, many VNAs, and Big Finish’s ‘The Harvest’ but of course, the Dalek invasion reference is to ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’, set in the 22nd century, but we have to be out there by the end of the 21st to attract their attention. We won’t do that if we turn inward and attack each other. They’ll just decimate us immediately as animals and hollow out the Earth with no resistance.
> 
> TW: The Doctor, in desperation, has to use the tattoo and app.


	3. Two Trains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning below

She was cut off from her Thief. She could barely detect him now. With all her artron energy left through their link she pushed as much translation matrix as she could. He would need to understand the humans to find her. She was sure he would find her eventually. But in the meantime, she was far from him, moving farther every... moment?... she existed in this space-time. She was far happier in the Vortex. In this space-time lead, silver, and strontium, surrounded her, blocking telepathic, delta, alpha, and artron, energy waves in painful equal measure. In reaching out she stumbled on three sisters, one an almost version of herself. She could barely Touch them, but bathed in their love, it had been so so long since she ever felt another of her kind... happy for some nameless time periods before she triggered the HADS. They wanted her secrets, but that was not a possibility.

She did wish, however, she could occupy the same space time as the silly humans when they opened the train carriage and saw her... gone?... in their little comprehension, just half a second out of phase...

Farewell sisters. Look after him.

She triggered the HADS.

 

*

 

It was the last train, a local stopping service. For the first few stations it had been full, before it emptied of country people going home after a meal or a drink out and the train had sped up for it’s express to the outskirts of Paris. The Doctor had curled up as small as he could at the back of the carriage, sucking at peppermint after peppermint, strangely intimidated by the rowdy, happy, drunk humans. A couple of women sat opposite him, one trying to flirt until her friend had said,

“You waste your time Marianne, he’s a working boy,” which caused the Doctor to tug his sleeve down and crunch up tighter, hugging himself for security.

But now he was alone in a dark carriage, the lights had dimmed as it pulled away from the last station for miles. As soon as he was alone he lifted the paper bag onto the seat and started to pull out goodies – bread, cheese, apples, water, chocolate milkshake. He was so hungry and he had bloody well earned the food...

The Doctor stopped suddenly, piece of bread in his hand frozen halfway to his mouth. He couldn’t feel her at all however he Reached...

HADS?

He hoped so. But as to why he couldn’t feel her before, he didn’t want to think about.

*

 

It was three thirty in the morning as the Doctor found himself back in the alley that led to the seedy apartment block. He had used the last of the money to pay for a taxi, he was so tired and didn’t fancy walking the streets of Paris late at night with a ‘get it here big boys’ app drilled into his wrist. He couldn’t remember feeling so unsafe in a long while, it was unsettling and confusing. He suspected that was the idea.

The communal door was locked. He leant his head on the door fighting the urge to give in to tears. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t. This was not like him at all. What would all his companions make of him now? Donna was so right; he needed someone with him. 

But she had meant to stop him, to stop him going to far, not falling into a wallow of self-piteous tears. However, if he had a companion to think of he’d play the brave Doctor, wouldn’t he? He couldn’t just cry in front of them, they’d panic, wouldn’t they...?

“Och, come here you wee man, let me hold you, don’t fret now, we’ll sort it all,” the Doctor half remembered, half imagined, as he sank to the wet ground.

How long he sat there he wasn’t sure. He was so tired. Tired and confused and the temporal - or dimensional, he hadn’t completely ruled out he and Yu had moved sideways! – infarction gave him a low level headache. Besides, he was also disgusted. It didn’t matter how many peppermints he ate, and he’d run out a long while ago, he still tasted unwashed human flesh, must, and semen, in his mouth, and besides the physical, he disgusted himself.

“Get up, you soggy, disgusting, toe rag. I always said you were a tart! Stop wallowing Professor and get up and try round the back,” the Doctor supposed imaginary Ace snapped in his subconscious. He stumbled to his feet, leaning heavily on the wall. He thought he’d heard booted footsteps stomp off in to the shadows and glanced around nervously. But he saw no one.

*

Nicolette had been concierge for the building for almost all her life, running it for her Maman as a young child during the Occupation and officially taking over when her mother passed over fifty years ago. At 89 she was supposed to be retired, but her granddaughter couldn’t stop her. As long as her legs and her eyes served her, she would serve those who lived here. Now it was mostly Arabs and Africans, then it had been mostly country people looking for a better life. They had hidden three Jewish families in the basement for ages. They shot all the men. Something like that opens your eyes forever. She had been seven. Now they were saying there might be a Third World War. Nicolette wouldn’t hear of talk of the enemy within, she might be damaged, she might still close her eyes 80 years on and see those men fall, hear those pistol retorts, the harsh orders in German, the accented French telling her to look and think hard and remember who she was, a good Aryan or one of them. But she wasn’t, she was anti fascist and pro human to her dying breath. Then the British had saved them, this time they might have well have pressed the button. There was going to be a war. The American President had been threatening Europe on the news again. The tiny-handed mad old orange man. They said the Russians would save them. Or rather, the Russians said they would. China made some enigmatic statement about the world being big enough for everyone. Nicolette doubted it. The Russian government was as the other shoe to the Americans. People saved people by seeing them as people, not the enemy.

That was good; she would remember that for her daily blog over her morning chocolate.

She heaved up the rubbish sacks and staggered over to the bins in the yard. She should have done it before bed, but she was not as strong as she’d been in her seventies. Her granddaughter was studying law; she didn’t need the worry. She’d support her as long as she was able.

“Merde! Mon Dieu!” she exclaimed as she nearly tripped on the skinny unconscious man in the brown pinstripe suit.

“I might feel like shit, but I’m certainly not a god. I’m the Doctor. Good morning!”

“You are English monsieur? An escort?”

“Did I speak in English? Your pardon Madam. I keep doing that. I’m neither, in point of fact. Is this your building?”

“Your French is faultless, if a little old fashioned, but yes, you spoke in English for the first. And that is a prostitution ident tag, monsieur. And to be English in Paris, in a nice suit like that...?” she shrugged. “Why anyhow are you asleep among my bins? How did you break in to my yard?”

“I climbed in. I need to get to the roof. I left something there. Something big...”

“Something big and blue that appeared a week ago, perhaps monsieur? Something that sounded so loud as it appeared from nowhere. When you left you wore a long coat over the suit and had a Chinese young man with you in a leather biker jacket over a brightly patterned shirt and jeans.”

The Doctor grinned up at her, although alarm bells ran in his head. He had lost four whole days somewhere! “Yeah. That’s us. The Doctor and Commander Chan Yu. I was taking him home.”

Nicolette put down the bin bags she’d been hugging and held out her hand. “Please, Doctor, to come in and have some chocolate. I have something to tell you.”

*

Nicolette made a large pan of sweet, rich, chocolate and warmed some bread while she chased the Doctor into her small bathroom off her kitchenette. She found him a clean tee shirt and shirt, as well as clean socks and pants, left by one her many, many, tenants. She did her best with a clothes brush with the suit and sneakers. She found him a razor, and on request, her granddaughter’s spare make-up bag.

With his suit cleaner, himself much cleaner, his hair brushed up and his face shaved and eyes made-up he looked more like the man she had spied on in fear, after the strange box had materialised on the roof garden. Although then he had worn a long tan coat over the suit. She noted his left inner wrist was pink and red and inflamed as if he’d tried to scrub off the tattoo and dig out the chip.

“That is sore, let me get you cream. You will not be able to remove it. The chip is deep, under the artery. Lasering the tattoo might trigger the chip into moving into the artery too. Only a doctor can take it away. With permission from the local police and council.”

“What?”

“When the debt is paid. Or when you can prove you have education and money to work to support yourself and will not go back to selling yourself.”

“What?”

Nicolette gently rubbed the cream over the Doctor’s sore wrist. “I will explain the chip’s history and law, but first two things.”

“What Nicolette?”

“That box? It is your space ship? Or an escape pod or landing craft? You come from outer space, yes?”

“I’m a Time Lord, from a planet called Gallifrey. I travel in time and space. The box is called a TARDIS. It’s my home. Yu is human though.”

“Yes Doctor, very human.”

“What?”

Nicolette looked at him sadly. “The second thing. Drink. Eat. You are so thin.”

The Doctor tore at a hunk of bread and dunked it into the chocolate. He noted again that it was heavy and brown, not like the beautiful white, fluffy, crispy, bread he always associated with France. No, this bread was heavy and almost grey, akin to the British national loaf of war and post war austerity rationing of the 1940s and 50s. He remembered it made Susan sick. Ayesha had mentioned famine and rationing due to the terrorist triggered Icelandic volcanic eruptions. No wonder, the sky so black and grey, full of dust particles.

While he ate, as promised, Nicolette explained. “People were so concerned, people trafficking, foreigners, migrants, such distrust and hatred with some people, and for others, worry and guilt that poor girls from far away were tricked and trafficked and sold as sex workers, sex slaves in other words. I was one who campaigned for awareness of trafficked girls for decades. The theory is that the woman – or man – must see a doctor and a government official to have the chip and the tattoo, signing an agreement form and proving that they are over 18. If you are tattooed and chipped, the theory is, you chose this lifestyle, this career, even if you are a desperate addict or in debt or struggling to make ends meet to feed your children, it is like the good old days, you chose it. That is what the white old men like to think. But doctors can be in the pay of gangs, officials bribed or their signature faked, as can the girls and boys trafficked, their signatures and ages...” she shrugged and spat on the floor in disgust, “but the men, now they can see the tattoo, the app pings on their phone, and they can fuck happy, not worrying that they are with a slave, when nine times out of ten, they still are. But it looks like the government did something good, and nowadays; looking like you do good is better than doing good. Forgive me, I am a cynical, bitter old lady.”

“No, Nicolette, you are far from cynical, you are wise. And to be bitter about injustice is nothing to apologise for. So... this is stuck in here for now?”

“You are an alien, so maybe not?”

The Doctor poked at his wrist with his right fingers. “I have a twin cardiovascular system. I suspect this nasty little chip is snug between my two main arterial flow backs here, and here,” he traced lines with his fingers. “I’ve got twice the chance of dislodging it to cut the artery if I try lasering the tattoo. So, bit not good then. Now, Nicolette, please tell me why you keep putting off telling me what happened to my TARDIS?”

Nicolette sighed deeply and took a sip of her chocolate. “The Chinese came. That is, a truck with diplomatic plates, a large black truck. And men came, men in suits and men in army uniform. They had a French officer with them; to tell me it was all above board and official. And another man, a young man. The one who arrived with you I think.”

The Doctor let out an anguished moan and lowered his head. Nicolette got up and walked around the table and put her hand on his back and rubbed, as if he were a child. “He was unhappy, and badly beaten, and in handcuffs. I do not think for one moment he wanted to bring the men to your... your TARDIS?”

The Doctor nodded slowly and ran his hands over his face. He couldn’t cry again. He wouldn’t. “I don’t suppose you have any idea where they took it?”

“No. But they’ll be taking it home, won’t they?”

“So, the airport...?”

Nicolette shook her head. “No, there hasn’t been any flights in or out of Europe, European Russia, or the Eastern seaboard of America, for over two years. It’ll be on a freight train, cargo container trains come in daily from China, it takes them three weeks on what they call the New Silk Road. Five a week arrive at Calais, only two a week come here, to Paris, as we are all still set up as if Britain was part of the EuroCombine, even though they never joined, but when they left... well, things were not good, we had to get closer together or fall like they. But we still act as if things end up in the City of London, as if they are still our friends.” Nicolette shrugged. “Besides, there would be mass unemployment otherwise, so it comes thundering through here and the Calais people and the English refugees have work.”

“I’ve just come from Calais, from the New Jungle. I was dumped there, beaten, and this,” the Doctor waved his wrist at Nicolette.

“Maybe they took it to the new main Chinese Embassy in Brussels?”

“Yes, that’s where I started too. But you are right; they’ll have documentation and evidence, if not my TARDIS...”

“What will you do now? If I can help?”

The Doctor smiled, looking around Nicolette’s place, her pictures of her dead son and daughter in law, at all the pictures of her granddaughter, and her degrees and certificates. “First, I shall have more of your delicious chocolate while you tell me all about your granddaughter. And you have helped so much, I can’t impose anymore.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: descriptions of Nazi violence and anti Semitism in the Second World War occupation of France.


	4. A red Ferrari and a red dress!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning below

It was a long walk back to the city centre and it had been hours since the Doctor had left Nicolette. He had refused any more help, even a packed lunch or money for train fare, he could tell she was struggling to put her granddaughter through law school and as for food, he realised now that food was in short supply and every European citizen and official refugee had a ration book. Small amounts of food could be purchased without it, but not so much. Here he was in Paris, France, the land of wonderful delicious food, yet most people struggled. Not the very rich, he realised, as he walked along the Seine. Several times he had had to turn men down due to the blasted app in his wrist, but all had politely accepted his explanation that he wasn’t working today. There had been no threats or refusals to accept his polite no, for which he was very grateful. He and Yu had taken a taxi last time, he’d had a credit card he’d found in the TARDIS before he had left – he remembered organising it in his Seventh persona. He’d been very organised then. Controlling even.

He shivered as if someone had walked over his grave – wasn’t that the human expression? He looked up the steps. A man had just turned away, a man in a white linen suit and a fedora. A man he felt sure had been watching him.

No. It couldn’t be, could it?

The thoughts of money made him ponder whether to accept the next man who approached him for the fare.

Or perhaps he could find a way to sneak on the train past the barriers and hide in the toilet until Brussels?

What was his plan when he got there anyway – break into the Embassy without his sonic screwdriver or psychic paper, when they would be looking out for him? Perhaps if he got nearby, got a laptop, he might be able to hack into their mainframe. Yes, he wanted his belongings back, but he wanted to know where the TARDIS and Yu were too.

He shivered and pulled his jacket about him. Well, perhaps he did want his coat back too. He loved that coat.

*

It took another hour to get onto the busy road leading to the train station. It was rush hour and cars, buses, and trucks rushed by, horns beeping, brakes squealing, people shouting. People crowded the pavement too, pushing and shoving and rushing, many under umbrellas, all glancing as he trudged, quite tired now, towards the station entrance. Many looked at him as if he were nothing, a piece of scum, a piece of flotsam washed up with no business getting in the way of hard working white Europeans. He was realising that without the TARDIS to translate for him, his default human language was English rather than French, and every sorry he uttered as people pushed passed was in English, and with that and the tattoo he was being looked down on as someone who was selling their body to get out of a refugee camp. Since the French had always been rather sangfroid about human sexuality and all its colours and deviations, he suspected it was the refugee rather than the prostitute aspect that caused the prejudice. It was depressing and isolating, and he was feeling isolated enough, not being able to Touch the TARDIS’s telepathic circuits or draw on her artron energy and being sans companion.

He sat for two hours in the station. Trains left for Belgium and beyond every half hour. Local trains left every few moments. People rushed by him, heading for home, some stopping to buy food. A policeman walked passed him every fifteen minutes or so looking at him more suspiciously each time. The platforms were gated by automatic barriers and staffed by several people. A ticket or phone app was needed to get past. There was no way to get onto the platforms, and the ones going beyond France had the tightest security of all. He needed tickets and probably an ID card or passport. With Yu all he’d needed was the psychic paper. He couldn’t talk his way on, as his tattoo got noticed every time. Once upon a time, a few centuries ago, he had been able to manage a fair temporary hypnotic suggestion, at least for a few moments. Again back in his seventh persona. He’d never been good at it, not like the Master. Like Koschei. A phenomenal master of hypnosis! They’d come to Paris on their honeymoon. So so many centuries ago.

Even if he... sold himself, documentation might be a problem.

He was running out of options. He needed a ticket and he needed food and drink. Other problems he would face once he had a ticket and once he wasn’t so exhausted and hungry. Wearily he rose to his feet just as the police officer approached him again. He spread his hands out and shrugged,

“Missed her train monsieur, what can I do?” he remembered to say in French.

The policeman scowled at him but said nothing. The Doctor slowly walked across the concourse to the exit.

Half an hour later, as he walked towards the city area he felt might give the best client, the richest and safest, a car pulled up and stopped in front of him. He stepped forwards towards the sleek red Ferrari hopefully; an expensive car stopping must mean his app had pinged on the man’s phone.

He was surprised to see a woman, a stylish woman in perhaps her late thirties, early forties, in a satin red dress and black pearls, her dyed blonde hair piled on her head in an artful way. He’d never really been that attracted to woman in the physical way, in any incarnations, not often anyway; his preference was for men, strong, masculine men as a rule in this incarnation, if he had much of a sexuality, as some incarnations it was stronger, others weaker... but he was hungry and she was obviously rich and couldn’t hurt him.

“Get in Monsieur.”

“Why?” he leaned down to the window, his arm stretched over the doorframe and soft black top.

“You are a whore, yes?”

“I cannot deny this,” the Doctor waved his wrist at her through the window, “but I’m not much use to you Madam.”

“Get in. We’ll discuss terms. You are soaked through. I don’t have much time. You are the first rent boy I’ve found that meets anywhere near my agency’s standards.”

“What?”

“Look, there is a fee of a thousand Euros, plus any tips you get for yourself for extras. I need a male escort pronto.”

“A thousand?” the Doctor asked, climbing in the passenger seat, curious. “For an escort? No sex?”

The woman put her toe to the floor and the car revved back out into the thinning traffic.

“Well, I’m sure sex will be expected, but not officially, but it shouldn’t bother you. I have an important engagement, a regular of mine was originally bringing two business partners for his trip to Paris, and so I have my best girls waiting for me at the hotel. He contacted me two hours ago to say he is bringing another man, one important potential partner, he needs impressing and he likes men. I take it you know which fork from another?”

The Doctor stretched back and ran his hand through his damp, dusty, hair, sweeping it up, “Ooh, I should think so. I find formal events tedious, but you know, I know how to behave.”

“H’m? What size are you? We need to get you a tux with some very tight trousers, I should think. And proper shoes.”

*

Two hours later the Doctor found himself in a foyer with three women, his new employer, Chantelle, plus two younger women, a tall African with short hair and huge gold earrings, and a dark, voluptuous Romanian girl, called Angel and Maria. All three women were in expensive evening dresses with very expensive jewellery and even more expensive purses and high-heeled shoes. He was in an evening suit, as Chantelle had instructed, and shiny dress shoes, bathed and his hair teased and backcombed to perfection, his eyes made up to enhance their size and make him appear perhaps a little vulnerable. In his pockets were condoms and lube that Chantelle had given him. His stomach rumbled a little, he was so hungry; all he had been given in the room above was coffee. He felt a little like he had walked into a Bond movie. Great if he were the hero, but he was just as much window dressing as the women. All he knew was they were expecting Russian businessmen with property interests in Western Europe.

The men were older than the women, and of course appeared older than the Doctor, if not actually older, which would be impossible, really. His client was tall, balding, with his head shaved to hide it, with a slight paunch but hardened muscles under the suit, as if he was no stranger to working out, or fighting. The other men were equally fit and hard under their expensive but ill-fitting suits. The one in charge immediately came up to Chantelle and kissed her hand, greeting her in Russian. Chantelle introduced Angel and Maria, and the Doctor.

“The Doctor eh?” asked the Doctor’s client, curiously.

“It’s the only name I have to offer,” the Doctor said, lowering his gaze and wondering if he should have decided on a fake one. John Smith served him well when it seemed he needed one.

“You are English?”

“I’m from Gallifrey, actually,” the Doctor replied tartly, linking his arm with the man’s offered one.

“Really? Would that be originally in Ireland? Or perhaps Wales? It sounds vaguely Celtic.”

“Have you been to Britain?”

“Not recently,” he said, and laughed throatily, showing pointy teeth. The others all laughed too. “Obviously you haven’t either, boat boy.”

The Doctor sniffed and smiled insincerely. Yes, he’d been called that earlier in the station.

“Oh, sorry my pretty,” his client, who had introduced himself as Anton, said, patting the Doctor’s hand on his arm.

“Shall we go?” Chantelle’s client, the obvious leader, a man calling himself Yuri, snapped. He was tall angular man with steel grey hair and steel grey eyes and Slavic cheekbones.

The Doctor doubted either name was real.

They walked into the restaurant; the Maitre’D guiding them through the happy throng to a private room.

*

The Doctor was starving, but he restrained himself to politely eating. During his exile after his second regeneration, his forced regeneration, he had wined and dined with the highest in the land at times, and liked it. He was also a good little Prydonian aristocrat from Lungbarrow who had had good manners drummed into him in early childhood by his nurse. Centuries on he could give off the right impression if needed. He felt Donna snort with distain in his head while Ace made puking noises. As for smiling politely and laughing at terrible jokes and pretending to be fascinated, well when love dies and fear grows in marriage, you get have to get along by faking it until you’re brave enough to run and keep running.

The women and he were there to look pretty and big up the big boys self esteem. They were paid to look beautiful, be available and stupid and keep their mouths shut. This was something the Doctor found so hard, but he kept his mind on the end goal, rescuing the TARDIS, possibly also Yu, if he hadn’t betrayed him, and getting the hell away as soon as he knew for sure it was an alternative reality, or coming back as an a Time Lord and getting Time back on track if Time had been forced to go wrong. Right now he didn’t feel like a Time Lord. He didn’t feel powerful or clever or strong. He felt like he was struggling to survive and doing whatever it took, at all costs. It was probably why the Chinese put the chip in him in the first place.

He smiled and flirted and demurred and laughed while eating as much as he could discreetly, trying not to think about the fat Russian on top of him later, probably inside him later, and instead tried to read between the lines.

Russian Mafia, he first decided. Then he changed his mind to KGB. Then back again. Or both, he then decided. But Anton was playing an interesting game. He wanted in with Yuri. The other two were accountant and bodyguard, no doubt, the Doctor guessed.

After the meal they left in two taxis to go to a casino, where serious money was gambled. The Doctor again got the Bond sensation. He was a Bond girl! Or at least a Bond boy! He stood demurely behind Anton’s chair at the roulette, prettily draped over him, watching the action. However, after a while, the Doctor studied the variables. The table was rigged. He soon got the measure of the how and calculated the odds. He then risked showing a bit of initiative and intelligence and whispered in Anton’s ear.

Anton began winning large stakes indeed. “My lucky charm; my pretty boat boy,” Anton slurred happily, after a great deal of champagne, fondling the Doctor’s arse. He tried hard not to wince or back away, or to freeze and panic, which what his immediate reactions were.

By the early hours, the four men were in a back room, playing poker against each other, knocking back the vodka, while Chantelle sat on a barstool with her legs crossed elegantly, smoking from a cigarette holder. She explained to the Doctor when he coughed politely and waved his hand away that e-cigarettes were pointless and there was nothing sexier than an old fashioned cigarette holder. Hers had belonged to her grandmother. 

The other women half-dozed together on a sofa, hugging each other, in a fake drunken stupor. The Doctor had been watching them on and off all night, for pointers and tips. They had been discreetly spitting the wine, brandy, and vodka, back into their glasses and tipping it into nearby pot plants or onto the carpet. Taking their example, the Doctor, however, just instructed his system to process the alcohol immediately. The girls’ clients occasionally glanced at them with a combination of fondness and lust. The Doctor suspected that Chantelle always supplied these men with these girls.

The Doctor sat on the floor cross-legged and nursed a flute of champagne. Look pretty and mouth shut, he reminded himself. The first, of course, was easy. The second so, so hard!

The talk around the table was growing serious. Yuri had legitimate businesses in IT, comms, and entertainment, as well as illegitimate ones in hacking, people trafficking, and arms dealing. The quiet one the Doctor had pegged for an accountant was big in energy, owning shares in gas pipelines from Russia. He also had illegal dealings in arms, including chemical ones. He and Yuri had merged their businesses some while ago. The bodyguard was obviously just that, ex army officer and ex arms dealing heavy. They were planning a Russian corporate buy out of some EuroCombine shares in ESA when they were floated on the ExileCity’s Stock Exchange in Frankfurt. Anton was the one with information. ESA and the European government were selling shares to fund the race to mining on the Moon and Mars, trying to get ahead of both the China National Space Admin and the commercial and highly successful China Aerospace Industry Corporation, and its recent daughter company, the Interplanetary Mining Corporation. ESA had fallen tragically behind in the late twenty teens and had been lagging since. It had lost its original Mars Mission Control and potential Space City and Space Ports sites, along with valued and respected scientists and was desperate to get ahead. Russia was still launching them as was China, but with the current political climate between the three power blocs plus India, who were just getting on with missions unhindered and uninterested in politics, it was looking less likely. If Russia had a commercial foot in ESA it would make the actual planned takeover easier in a few years. If Russia took over the Euro Sentinels it would give them a great advantage over NASA, which after a few years of cutbacks and being ignored politically, was now being heavily invested in by the fascist Whitehouse. Plus the Sentinel project would provide some incredibly high tech spying equipment to watch the former superpower and traditional enemy.

The Doctor wanted to put his head in his hands and rock. This was so wrong. Wrong wrong wrong! Yes, by the middle of this century there should be three power blocs, that would merge into two by the 2070s, but Russia should be part of a democratic Europe with Britain at the heart of it, not a dictatorship about to launch a combination of corporate takeover and invasion of a Europe without Britain. Plus a Britain had been in command of the first Mars Base! They should already be half way there!

And America couldn’t be fascist. It had a constitution to protect against such horrors!

He remembered he was there to look pretty and that he was also supposed to know the background to all this and was being paid not to care about the shady deals being done. Anton was no doubt KGB though. So he wasn’t even a Bond boy. He was enemy disposable pretty boy collateral damage.

The talk went onto the ideas that they were flogging a dead horse, that, however, how far ahead Russia was to NASA and ESA, and even by combining with ESA, the Chinese was so much further ahead. They had way more scientific expertise and political will than anywhere else. Not only had they been investing non-stop since the 1950s and been planning bases on the Moon and Mars decades before anyone else, they had Africa at their disposal to rip to pieces for the right resources. By they time Africa was empty of all mineral wealth no one really doubted China would not only be on the Moon and Mars, but several moons of the gas giants and many of the larger asteroids. There had already been that top-secret mission last year supposedly to sling shot from Earth to achieve sub-light and rumour had it that they now had alien tech, more than Roswell. In fact they had four bases of alien tech. Anton dropped casually that he had even heard they had an alien time machine.

America, however, was a definitely a dead horse, however it urgently refunded its space programme. It had used its Roswell resources in drone weapons and F1-11 series spy and warplanes decades before and whatever that mad old president said, it was hot air.

“Meaningless, childish hot air,” Anton added and then men laughed, even Chantelle tittered and the young women giggled.

“Well, we’re all fucked then,” Yuri said, knocking back the vodka in his hand. “Ah, let’s call it a night. We’ll meet in the boardroom tomorrow at two.”

*

Once in Anton’s hotel room Anton kicked the door closed before violently slamming the Doctor against it and kissing him aggressively. The Doctor tried not to struggle or freeze but to respond. He put his hands on to Anton’s neck and the back of his head and let the man run his hands down his spine and over his arse and round to his groin. He supposed if he imagined someone else he might make himself respond physically faster. Anton moved his hand up from his cock, undoing his shirt buttons and spanning his hands across the Doctor’s cool chest.

“Bozhe Moi. It is true. The rumours.”

“What?”

Anton aggressively ripped off the dinner jacket and shirt and lifted the Doctor’s arm, looking at the rose tattoo. “The Chinese, did they do this?” he asked in English before he kissed the Doctor’s wrist.

“Yes,” the Doctor stuttered out, shocked. “Time machine, you said...?”

“Rumour and counter rumour and a train thundering through Russia and on its way across Siberia as we speak. A blue box. A British 1950s Police telephone box. A time machine, eh Doctor?”

“TARDIS! My TARDIS,” the Doctor emphasised. “Are you KGB?” he asked.

“UNIT Russia Special Black Ops.”

“Oh?”

“And KGB.”

Anton pulled the Doctor aggressively to the bed and pushed him down onto his back and began to take off his shoes and tight trousers.

“Wait!”

“I’m still paying for a service Doctor. And you do have the chip and entered into a contract for tonight.”

“Well, that’s true but you know who I am and you know I never consented to being chipped like this. I would never, ever, consent to such a thing. I just woke up with it in my wrist. You know that don’t you? You know who I am...”

While the Doctor was talking Anton lay down on the naked Doctor fully clothed, forcing his legs wide apart with his knees and began to kiss his neck, then silencing him with an open-mouthed hard kiss. The Doctor froze.

“I know what you are,” Anton said, “not who you are. The files are vague. But you are an alien. British UNIT’s pet alien. The reason Torchwood was set up. But by tomorrow morning I’m going to know you a little better. No file said you were so very pretty.”

“Um... thank you, I think. What do you intend to do to me? I need to get my TARDIS. Can you help?”

“I don’t want China to have your TARDIS and I’m not sure we want you poking your nose into our space race either. What will you do when you find it?”

“Go. Well, I need to know Commander Chan is okay first.”

“Commander Chan Yu, designer of the Shenzhou 19, the Divine Farscape slingshot sub-light speed programme?”

“Uh huh. Oh, that hurts!” the Doctor protested as Anton sucked on his collarbone.

“Not as much as this,” Anton said and slapped the Doctor’s thigh, leaving a red handprint. “Now, fulfil your contract and we’ll discuss this in the morning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Future history again extrapolated from ‘Warriors of the Deep’ and the Big Finish 'The Harvest’ and the inference of the Doctor’s sexuality (apart from being my headcanon since I was about 5 and the Master appeared on our screens – yes, I’m that old!)comes from ‘The Unicorn and The Wasp’, as in:  
> Donna: Typical. All the decent men are on the other bus.  
> Doctor: Or Time Lords.  
> Donna: (glances at Doctor with withering look as if to say, what makes you think you’re decent)  
> Yes, Yu is a Chinese John Crichton from Farscape!  
> Classic fans will spot the IMC reference, and maybe the Sentinels reference from ‘Warriors of the Deep’, although the Euro Sentinels are already real, so...
> 
> TW: Dub-con. The Doctor becomes a high-class escort for the night. He doesn’t exactly fully consent to what his client wants. There is nothing that explicit in the text.


	5. Back to Brussels with a spy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings below

Yu opened his eyes to something he’d not experienced for days and with this particular sun, his own planet’s star, for over a year – warm but weak sunlight on his eyelids. He hurriedly struggled to sit up and look out of the window. The cuffs bit and he winced.

Sky. Actual real blue sky dotted with clouds. Cumulus clouds, white and fluffy, and a weak winter midday sun peeping behind them. He sensed the soldiers and agents in his carriage were also looking. He wondered where he was now. Last time he’d be able to look and recognize anything he thought he was in a Russian Siberian town, judging by the architecture. The black dusty sky, he had soon realised, was volcanic ash, but from where and when he had no idea. There had been nothing he knew of before he left. But then, he had been secluded at Base 27 near Xichang in Sichuan Province. For over a year before his launch access to the Internet had been forbidden. If he hadn’t downloaded Star Trek and his favourite books onto his phone before he entered the base he’d have gone crazy. It had been nothing but research and training and seclusion for 15 months. Not even being allowed to speak to his mother or Li. Why had he told the Doctor Li was his fiancée? It was cruel and although true, it meant nothing, a marriage of convenience for two gay people. She was his friend, though, and she must be worried. Was she okay? Was his mother?

Was the Doctor? What did they do to him? He knew the TARDIS was on the same train as him, he’d seen them load her in Paris. But of the Doctor, nothing since he’d fainted in the hotel room and been carried out by soldiers, while they had taken him into ‘protective custody’ and later threatened him with charging him with various treasonous activities, contamination of foreign ideas, and illegal contact with an alien, along with being a homosexual, as well as physically beat him. He’d already been beaten up quite badly trying to protect the unconscious Doctor. It was why he’d finally capitulated and taken them to the TARDIS. He didn’t think the Doctor would expect him to die protecting her. Where there was life there was hope. He’d been expecting the Doctor to show up somehow and rescue him, but he guessed what he’d said once was true; there was none so monstrous as humans. Escaping elsewhere seemed so much easier than from his own people in his own time.

Yu closed his eyes and sniffed, wishing he could wipe away the incriminating tears before they were seen and mocked. He was terrified for the Doctor, what if he was elsewhere on the train, what if they planned experimentation on him as he was alien...

*

The Doctor was asleep in a cold bath when Anton came in for his morning piss. He had guessed that the Time Lord hadn’t fled, seeing as his clothes were just where he had ripped them off and dropped them.

“Wake up Doctor!” he shouted as he pulled the plug and splashed the water on the Doctor’s face.

The Doctor sat up, shocked, and instantly covered his modesty with his hands, glaring at Anton as the previous night, or early hours, came back to him.

Anton noticed and laughed. “There’s no point being shy Doctor!” he said. But he threw a towel at him, which the Doctor gratefully caught and stood, wrapping himself in it, shivering. He’d been in the bath for hours, scrubbing and scrubbing at his body, as if it would never be clean again. And that was after a lengthy shower. All the while tears had slid silently down his cheeks. He’d ignored them, muttering an angry diatribe to himself about the chip, the tattoo, the way humans sold everything. It was far easier to be angry than feel violated or afraid. 

After Anton had crashed, he had slid out of bed and paced, fighting his first instincts to pull on the clothes and run and run and never look back. But he was promised information on the location of both the TARDIS and Yu. He’d paced for a hour, pulling at his hair, arguing with himself, glaring at the sleeping human who had so abused his body without his full consent. He supposed he had consented the minute he had got into Chantelle’s car, but he hadn’t imagined a man so... aggressive. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been abused and worse, but only with one man, or rather, one Time Lord, and somehow that was different. The psychic link he guessed. No. He knew. Love. But he was alone, so alone. More alone than he’d ever felt, as that ever-present connection to the TARDIS was gone. He knew that she could not have been destroyed, or even taken off Earth. If they had forced Yu to open the door with his key, Yu didn’t know how to operate her. Did he? Yu was bright, a phenomenal stellar cartographer and astrophysicist, as well as an experimental physicist and practical rocket engineer. Besides, the TARDIS liked him. He suspected she had activated the HADS, but she’d done so many times before without removing her link fully, her telepathic translation matrix, at least, had always remained with him. Perhaps she was so weak now, filled up only on rift energy and cut off from the Eye of Harmony, that Black Hole of Rassilon that cost Omega his life and sanity.

The Dark Times.

He was in a dark time indeed.

Wrapped in the towel, he went back into the hotel room and began gathering up the borrowed clothing.

“Uh hu!” Anton said, shaking his head. “One more time.”

The Doctor looked across the room at him, dead eyed. “One more time?” he repeated emptily.

Anton flopped on the bed and patted the sheet next to him. “Then we’ll call room service for brunch and we can talk of the Chinese Space Programme and their clever Commander Chan Yu. No doubt the Party will reward him for his bringing them a time machine.”

“What? No. NO!” the Doctor panicked. How could Yu have tricked him so much? How could he have risked so much on the off chance he’d be found by him only to betray him. No!

Anton stood and grabbed the Doctor by the arm and spun him around, flinging him face down on the bed. “I’m not paying for you to say no!”

“I thought your business partner was paying the agency?” snapped the Doctor, but he instantly regretted it.

*

The Doctor sat hugging his knees, wrapped in a sheet, watching the TV news and catching up on European and global politics. Earth was in a bad way. The twentieth first century was never meant to be good, but not this bad. It was certainly meant to get its act together both over tribal warfare and destruction of the environment. Yet, here it was accelerating the destruction of the ozone and the planet’s ecosystem for profit while the fall out sparked yet more firefights and the people displaced by both were despised and blamed for the violence or ecological damage they fled. A transitional phase later history books called this century, ‘neither fish nor fowl, a nonentity between the industrial and digital to the space faring ages, a footnote in history’*. But not a great place to be lost without a TARDIS, sonic screwdriver, psychic paper, companion, or even money.

Except he now had money. Anton had taken his wallet from his trousers and peeled off note after note of Euros and placed them on the bed in front of him. He felt so dirty and ashamed.

There was a knock at the door as Anton emerged from the bathroom in a new suit and tie, doing up his gold and diamond cufflinks.

“Room service,” a woman called.

“Enter,” Anton replied curtly in near accentless French.

A woman dressed in a traditional maid’s uniform came in with a tray bearing pots of coffee and chocolate, along with baskets of bread rolls and croissants. For the first time since the Doctor had woken in France he saw proper French bread. She glanced at the Doctor curiously, and then smiled slightly, before glancing again at Anton.

“You are Russian, monsieur?” she asked innocently, although a far from innocent smile curved her lips as Anton peeled out several more Euros as a very large tip indeed and pushed them into her held out hand. She tucked them into her apron pocket before wishing them good eating,

“Thank you,” Anton said, holding the door open for her, looking at her intently in the eyes for a few moments.

The Doctor watched with narrowed, thoughtful, eyes. What was that about? “Oh! This is illegal in your country, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Anton replied coldly. “Chocolate or coffee for you?”

“Oh, chocolate. Every time. Except when there’s tea. But I expect you prefer tea too. But when in Rome. Or Paris in this case,” the Doctor replied, trying to fake a little bubbling happy normality into his behaviour. He didn’t really feel quite like himself and pretence was always a good kick-start.

Anton poured the Doctor a bowl of chocolate, then placed a bread roll and a croissant onto a plate and brought them over. He then dragged a chair over to the bed and fetched himself a coffee and a croissant and sat opposite the Doctor, using the bed in between them as a table. As he sat his jacket shifted, pulling back across the shoulders, and for a second the Doctor got a glimpse of a gun snug in its holster.

“Shenzhou 19 was supposed to orbit the Earth at an oblique angle and somehow use gravity as a bounce,” Anton began without any prompting from the Doctor, just as he had promised, “a push up, and just to prove Chan’s theory could obtain sub-light speed to more than half journey times to Mars and beyond. It was supposed to be in space for less than a day. It vanished. China went into lock down and denied anyone else had tracked their experimental capsule at all, that it had never existed. Just over a year later Shenzhou 19’s designer turns up at the Chinese Embassy in Brussels with a being known to UNIT, an alien that was employed in Britain as a scientific advisor back in the old Blood and Thunder days of the legendary Lethbridge Stewart. This is not hidden for those in the know; they had a reception. I was there. A political coup. Look how far a Chinese cosmonaut travelled – so far the Doctor had to bring him home. Correct so far?”

“A wormhole opened up,” the Doctor explained. “Chan Yu didn’t create it. At least, I don’t think he did. I picked up a human distress signal, an old style radio signal. Morse code it was. SOS. It was the further side of the Andromeda galaxy, an anomaly. I investigated and found Commander Chan Yu. I brought him home.”

“The long way round?”

“What?” the Doctor asked, high pitched, pushing his hair up and finally looking at Anton.

“I watched you together. He’s your companion. More than companion I suspect. You better hope his people don’t suspect. If you think my country doesn’t like gay people, it has nothing on what the People’s Republic of China think or what they’ll do as punishment.”

“Yu...” the Doctor felt cold and sick with sudden fear.

“So he vanished in a wormhole?” Anton clarified. “Is that like a... what? Short cut through space? But you say he didn’t create it?”

“No,” the Doctor replied. “He wanted to slingshot. Then bounce. Or technically more of a gravity footprint. Sort of. He is so brilliant. Genius. But that wormhole wasn’t him, unless it was an unforeseen side effect, but it was more likely a natural phenomenon. I plotted it; it swings on an axis where both ends rotate in space-time, although I couldn’t track Yu’s end for long... It probably won’t open up again above Earth for millennia.”

“So it was entirely coincidental?”

“Oh yes. I’ve no doubt China is ahead in the game, but not that far ahead. Unless they can get into my TARDIS? Which is impossible. Do you know where it is?” the Doctor finished, suddenly dropping his voice half an octave and demanding urgently.

Anton shrugged. “At the moment. But it’s not accessible. It’s on a train. Going through Siberia. Or possibly Mongolia by now? Once it’s in China, no idea. There are six space cities, two massive space research centres in Beijing and Shanghai that are official, and several secret research bases in mountainous regions. China is huge. If I were to put money on where they’ll take your ship, it would be Base 21 or 27. They’re like Roswell. Without all the conspiracy theory and tourist tat and Internet prattle. They are actually secret.”

“Naturally you have no such places in Russia then?” the Doctor sneered.

“Of course not,” Anton snapped, then tore of a piece of croissant and ate, as if the Doctor’s attempt to mock was of no importance. “I may not know where they are taking it, but I knew they were intending to take it. I managed to get almost ten minutes into their systems before I had to return to the Reception.”

“Can you read Chinese characters?” the Doctor asked

“Of course. Speak all official Chinese dialects.”

“Oh yeah, of course, ’course,” the Doctor said, nodding, before stuffing his mouth with bread. “Spy. Yeah. Getting that,” he said around the bread. He then snapped his head back up and glared at Anton. “Are you going to help me?” he demanded.

Anton shrugged again, and then fiddled with his suit cuff and shirt cufflink. The shrug once again showed off the gun in its holster. “I need more info. I’m going over to Brussels after my meeting this afternoon. Then I will break into the Embassy.”

“Just like that?” the Doctor mocked. He had yet to come up with a plan himself. He was sure he’d think of something. He was good at making things up in a hurry. But this human seemed so prosaic and boring.

“I have ways,” Anton confirmed coldly. “Back up would be good,” he added.

“Oh, I’m back up now. I thought I was just a tart,” the Doctor replied archly.

“They made you that,” Anton replied equally archly, and then said more thoughtfully, “Or possibly you assisted them. You could have said no.”

“And end up more bruised than I am now?” the Doctor asked, shifting uncomfortably on his bottom in the bed.

“I meant to the night’s contract with Madam Chantelle’s agency.”

The Doctor shrugged. “I’d spent a day trying other means of getting to Brussels to break it to the Embassy to get my belongings and information. I just needed the money. It’s how you do anything on this planet, isn’t it? Money!”

Anton ignored the racist slur and explained, “I need a second pair of hands and eyes. I wanted to get the measure of you. You’re so skinny you look like I could snap you, but you’re obviously stronger than you look. But not strong enough to consider fighting me off, or maybe you considered it and rejected it. You’re far more vulnerable out there than a lot of your files suggest.”

“What? Last night and this morning was... a test?”

“Oh no. It was fun. Didn’t you have fun?” Anton grinned lasciviously.

The Doctor looked down, scowling. “What do I have to say? Yes, when it wasn’t? Am I still your escort or am I back up now? What is it you want from me?”

“Nothing. I wanted sex, as you are gorgeous, and information on the Divine Farcape project. I had you and I have it. I want the specifications of Shenzhou 19 and the Chinese not to have their hands on a piece of alien tech. You must understand; my employers want it just as badly. When we find the location of your TARDIS at the Embassy, we’re racing each other to find it.”

“Why ask for my help then? Why tell me anything?”

“Personally, I’d rather see you in your TARDIS away from here, rather than it being in the hands of the Russians or UNIT. UNIT is not the organization you knew it to be. Nor is any UN organization, if it comes to it. It’s disbanding, coming apart at the seams. Everything is up for grabs and for sale. Let’s not make Time Lord technology one of those things on the market.”

“Even if the Time Lord is,” the Doctor muttered. 

Anton ignored the barbed comment. Standing and straightening his cuffs, he said, “Okay. I have a meeting. You can remain here if you wish. Bathe again, order more food. Fetch your own clothes from the agency and meet me in the lobby at five. We’ll drive to Brussels. I’ll explain then how we’ll break in.”

*

The Doctor arrived early, back in his own suit and trainers, money Chantelle had paid him in his pockets along with that he’d received from Anton. Maybe he had enough to get him all the way to Beijing. Or wherever the information he and Anton would hopefully find tonight would point him. Anton arrived on the dot of five, with his suitcases, and checked himself out. He led the Doctor to the underground car park and to a sporty little black BMW with diplomatic plates.

“I, um, don’t have a passport or anything,” the Doctor said, rubbing the back of his head, as he climbed into the car. “If you intend to drive all the way to Belgium.”

“Open borders across the EuroZone Doctor.”

“No, that’s not true. They wanted ID from Yu and I on the train.”

“That was security, for terrorist prevention. How did you board?”

“I have... well, I had this... thing,” the Doctor began awkwardly. “It’s psychic paper. Well, I call it that. It’ll show what the person needs to see.”

“Sounds exceedingly useful,” Anton said dryly.

“It was. Yeah. Yeah it was. Could you please remove your hand and concentrate on the road?”

Anton laughed selfishly. “I can do both,” he said, putting his toe to the floor as they slid from the slip road onto the motorway, the car smoothly rising to a cruising speed of over 160 kph.

“Is that even legal?”

“Diplomatic plates my dear Doctor.”

“No. Don’t. Don’t do that. I’m not your dear.”

“Two thousand Euros to bang your frigid arse, you are very dear indeed, Doctor.”

“Oi! I’m not... Just don’t grope and drive! Please!”

Anton laughed again. But he removed his hand from the Doctor’s inner thigh and put it on the steering wheel, where it belonged.

*

The Doctor didn’t mean to sleep, but he’d slept little for the previous two nights and the two nights before that he’d spend recovering from his mystery beating injuries. When he awoke, many hours later, they were on the outskirts of Brussels. The car stopping woke him.

“Where are we?” he asked, squinting into the dark street.

“My apartment block. I work at the Russian Embassy. Come on.” Anton climbed out of the car.

“It’s not for more sex, is it? My contract with that agency was for one night. And you know full well I didn’t consent to this chip thing.”

Anton opened the door. “I’m having a nap and changing. You can do as you wish. Sleep. Eat. Watch TV. Surf the ’Net. Come.”

The Doctor followed Anton across the parking lot and to a communal door, and entered first as Anton waved him in. He climbed the stairs to the third floor, well aware of Anton’s eyes on his rear.

“So cold,” Anton said, as he looked.

“What?” the Doctor asked, stopping and turning.

“You.”

“First frigid and now cold. I tried my best you know. I’m not actually a prostitute, you might have gathered. I was perfectly prepared to do whatever you wanted that night; I had entered into a contract, as you say. But you knocked me for six with knowing who and what I was.”

“I’m not sure what the Chinese Embassy had in mind, chipping and tattooing you like a trafficked illegal migrant, but you’d have to be both stupid and drunk not to notice how cold you are, especially inside, up your arse. Most men like that heat, you know, as much as the tightness. Weird.”

“You didn’t complain at the time. And there’s been no previous complaints, either,” the Doctor snapped.

Anton chuckled wryly. “From men who knew, I assume. And I’m not complaining. Come. One more flight. Let’s not be overheard.”

“Oh!” the Doctor stamped his foot in annoyance and carried on walking up the stairs. Anton continued to watch his arse.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked, as he opened the door and gave the Doctor a gentle push in the small of the back to go inside.

“Yes,” the Doctor replied flatly. “You bruised me.”

“Yet, I wonder if those bruises would still be there? Did you know you were breathing about four breaths a minute when you were sleeping? And if I hold you close, that cool skin next to my human warm skin, I can feel the slow double rhythm of your heartsbeat. How would these clients the Chinese had planned for you, how would they not notice? And what would they do when they did? Xenophobia is a contagious disease in the world at the moment.” All the while Anton was speaking he was walking through the flat, with the Doctor following. They arrived in an open plan large kitchen. Anton reached for the Samovar. “You’ll take tea Doctor?”

“Please. And I don’t have an answer for you. I’ve had only one... client before you. He was as thick as a very thick thing. A drunken countryman; a farmer. He stank of human sweat and cow dung and sour milk. I used my mouth. He didn’t complain. I probably did. To myself. Afterwards.”

“Ah. You were after a train fare or money for food no doubt?”

“M’mm. Do you have any biscuits? Cake? Fruit? My blood sugar is running so low. While you’re so fascinated, my insulin burns sugar so much faster, I need so much more...”

Anton pushed a copper bowl towards the Doctor across the breakfast bar. It contained a few shrivelled apples. “There’s been no harvest for two years in Europe, you know, or European Russia. Fruit is rationed here. I’ve some chocolate somewhere. I’ll find it for you. And I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m afraid I restrict my proclivities to outside both Russia and here, even though of course it would be fine here. Except someone from the Embassy might find out. I will not put myself at risk of blackmail or arrest. I get a little enthusiastic.”

“Oh?” the Doctor said, mouthful of apple. “In that case,” he said, spraying apple bits everywhere, “apology accepted.”

“Have you eaten at all since our breakfast together?”

“No.”

Anton poured the tea and liberally sugared the Doctor’s. “I have an excellent cleaner. She leaves meals in my freezer. Let’s get you fed then I’ll crash for a few hours. We’ll leave at 3am.”

*

“You want me to what?” the Doctor whispered, in the dark. He and Anton stood in a service area at the back of the Embassy’s underground car park. He was looking up at a tiny opening, a ventilation grill, leading, Anton said, to the laundry room. It had no CCTV or alarms to trip.

“You’re such a skinny bitch, stop making a fuss!” Anton snapped, putting his hands together for a third time to make a stirrup. Anton had changed out of his expensive suit, and was dressed in black jeans and jersey with a black beanie on his head. His gun was still on him, tucked into his jeans.

“Ooh!” the Doctor breathed out in frustration and annoyance. “And I’m not a bitch!” he added as he put a foot in Anton’s hands and then climbed onto his back, holding onto the wall and Anton’s head to steady himself as Anton pushed him high enough to fiddle with the screws of the grill with a proper, old-fashioned, metal screwdriver, carefully pocketing the screws. He caught it as it came away, nearly losing balance as it took it. Anton’s hand came up to counter-balance him and both men wobbled for a few moments, until the Doctor felt safe enough to pass Anton the grill. He lowered it, one handed, to some sacking he had brought.

“In you go,” Anton hissed urgently. “I’ll see you at the kitchen’s delivery door. And in point of fact,” he added to the Doctor’s fast disappearing skinny form as he wriggled through the ventilation shaft, “In modern English, you most definitely are a bitch.”

The Doctor tried not to get sidetracked by Anton’s aside concerning language meaning and its temporal drift. He found himself coming head first towards another grill. He struggled to get the screwdriver out of his pocket and undo the screws, almost popping out his shoulder with the contortion. He didn’t think he had ever missed the sonic so much since he was parted from it. Crossing his fingers and trusting Anton’s intel, he pushed the grill and it fell forward. The Doctor winced, waiting to hear a clatter of metal on flooring. When it didn’t come he continued to wriggle until he too tipped forward.

He found himself falling face first on to a pile of wet seat covers and tablecloths piled up onto of a large tumble dryer. He swung himself around and landed on his feet onto the concrete floor as softly as a cat. His better Time Lord vision allowed him to make out the room by the red and yellow standby lights of the washers, dryers, and dishwashers in the room. He snuck out and turned left, as Anton had told him. Three doors down were the kitchens, large with stainless steel and chrome worktops and units. He tiptoed across the large kitchen to the back delivery doors and undid the bolts and grinned through the window as he heard the sounds of Anton picking the locks.

“What language drift?” he whispered as Anton opened the door and entered. “I’m neither a female dog nor a nasty, spiteful woman. I’m pretty sure that’s the two meanings I’ve ever come across on Earth.”

Anton grinned and leaned forward, his face coming close to the Doctor’s, “Meaning three, a gay man who likes taking it up the arse and giving head,” he hissed. “Come. We have to work out how to get into the main computer room undetected.” He started off across the kitchens to its main doors, not the service one the Doctor had entered through.

“Oh?” the Doctor said thoughtfully, rubbing his head as trying to help his brain assimilate the new information, while following Anton. “Oh! Well, you know, in that case... only when I want to mind you. When I consent.”

“Naturally,” Anton replied quietly.

“It still sounded a bit insulting too.”

“It was meant to be.”

“Oh. Okay. After all I’m doing for you.”

“You need to be in here more than me Doctor, you know that. Through here.” Anton led them through plastic swing doors to a bare concrete stairwell; there were fire doors opposite them. “Up we go. Five floors.”

They climbed in silence for a while, until they were a floor above the main entrance and the security office. Once past level one, Anton was first to break the silence,

“Your English is a bit stilted at times, old fashioned, your French definitely so, almost Revolutionary French,” Anton said as they climbed towards the third floor. “Your files note you speak and read all languages.”

“Well, not so much me as my TARDIS. She translates. Telepathic circuits. But I can’t feel her...” the Doctor was surprised at how his voice wobbled. 

Anton put his hand on the Doctor’s shoulder and squeezed gently, “We’ll hack their military and space mainframes. We will find her for you.”

“Thank you.”

“How do you speak French and English at all? And Mandarin too?”

“My Mandarin is a bit rusty, enough to get by I hope. My Hokkin is better. My friend and I ran away a few times from, well school trips I suppose you would call them. We had to learn to survive. He’s a phenomenal telepath and hypnotist. He learnt first and taught me. Except French. I learnt that from...” the Doctor paused and swallowed, “from my mother. And I really don’t know why I’m telling you all this. I hated you a few hours ago.”

“You’re less alien that the files suggest.”

“Everyone has parents Anton. Well mostly. There are hermaphrodites out there... I knew a lovely one once, one of my very best friends. Now he was what you would call an alien. Looked like a big green willie with tentacles for arms and legs and one huge eye but the loveliest, gentlest, wisest, person you could meet. Splendid chap.”

“I never know when you’re being serious,” Anton laughed, then asked, “This friend you played hooky with, was he the Master?”

“Well, not then. Not even my husband then...”

“Your...?” Anton stuttered out.

“Doesn’t it say in the files? Very remiss that,” the Doctor quipped archly. “We’re here. Level five. What now?” 

They stood the wrong side of a fire door, with no way of opening it, and even it there was, it would trigger the alarms.

“In the absence of your sonic screwdriver, I remove my shoe,” Anton replied cryptically.

“What?”

Anton took off his left shoe and removed the heel and shook. A small square electronic device fell into his palm. He attached to the door behind the lock on the other side and then began to put his shoe back on. The Doctor was impressed.

“Ooh. Spy-ie things. I’m with a proper spy. That’s brilliant. You’re brilliant Anton.”

“Can I have that in writing?” Anton asked, before pushing his lips to the Doctor’s and kissing much more gently than he had before. The Doctor kissed back, this time just for him, under no obligation or contract. Anton pulled away and put his finger to the Doctor’s lips and mouthed, “Silence.”

The Doctor nodded. Anton pulled the door open and slowly but the fire alarm, nor any other went off. He peeped around and saw a small camera hidden in a black dome roughly five metres away. He pulled a small digital spyglass from his back pocket. It looked like a fountain pen. He removed the lid and twisted and put it to his eye, then handed it to the Doctor.

“The camera in the black dome, can you calculate how long its revolution – how many seconds to get under that door in its blind spot before it looks back down this end?” he hissed.

The Doctor looked and counted. He held his left hand, five fingers, five fingers, three fingers – thirteen seconds. 

Anton nodded. “Okay. I’ll go first. Tell me when.”

The Doctor nodded, giving a thumbs up, then counted down on his fingers and pointed go. Anton rushed down the corridor. Twenty six seconds later the Doctor followed.

Anton pulled the Doctor close. This time the Doctor didn’t feel so annoyed about being manhandled by those hot powerful arms. “There,” Anton pointed, “Room 542.”

The Doctor put the tiny pen spyglass to his eye again and looked through the smoky glass to see the CCTV camera turn. “Eight seconds, plus the thirteen from the other side,” he whispered.

“Okay. Plenty of time,” Anton replied.

“Now,” the Doctor hissed, counting down. This time they rushed together to the door. It was locked, but it took Anton nine seconds to pick it with his shoe device and they were in with the door shut just as the camera came back round.

*

Yu was roughly shaken awake. The pale grey and lilac sky outside was streaked with the pink light of early dawn. The train had come to a stop. The cargo containers were being shifted by cranes from the Russian flatbeds onto the Chinese ones the other side of the barrier. He was pulled to his feet by his arm and instructed to get off. Climbing off the carriage with no hands to use and no platform was hard and he stumbled and fell face down in the dirt and ice. His arm was tugged painfully as he was hoisted to his feet, it felt as if his shoulder was being wrenched from his socket and he cried out and stumbled. The soldiers and agents laughed, as did the Mongolian border guards. One of them spat at him as he was dragged over the invisible line and stood on the soil of his own country. The last time he’d been on his own temporal Chinese soil he’d been a hero, walking towards the gantry to climb to his capsule. Now he was being treated like a criminal, and he couldn’t understand why. His theory was sound. He hadn’t ceased being a loyal Chinese subject up until when they had drugged the Doctor and beaten him up.

He looked up and watched an unremarkable red container lift in the air and move over the border to its new flatbed, knowing it contained the TARDIS. Something was wrong with her, though, he should have understood whatever it was the Mongol guard said as he spat at him.

They dragged him across the tracks and towards a small chopper.

“Where are you taking me?”

But the only reply was a backhander that brought blood to his mouth.

‘Oh Doctor, where are you?’ Yu thought desperately. ‘Hurry up or I’m gonna be an organ doner bank.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Classic Who fans will spot the reference to Alpha Centuri :)  
> Also, there really is both a Space Port and a research base in the mountains near Xichang!
> 
> TW: Dub-con. The contract continues into the morning. There is nothing explicit in the text.  
> TW: Injuries. The Doctor mentions injuries sustained during sex with Anton  
> TW: Violence. Commander Chan Yu is ‘roughed up’ by his capturers.  
> TW: Use of the word bitch and discussion of nineties/noughties gay slang
> 
> *‘neither fish nor fowl, a nonentity between the industrial and digital to the space faring ages, a footnote in history’ from ‘Down Among The Dead Men’ by Professor Bernice Summerfield


	6. A Coat of Discovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings below

The Doctor stood by the door. He was so bored. Anton had lifted him up and he’d sprayed the two cameras with what was a virus, although it came out of what looked like a deodorant can. Ace would have been so proud of Anton. He said it would create a feedback loop from the blocked imagining circuits and corrupt the closed circuit back to the mainframe in three minutes, so as long as the security guards hadn’t been looking directly at the right screen as he’d sprayed them, they were still as good as invisible. He suspected it contained some form of alien tech. Mind you, the Doctor, decided, technology was accelerating fast from the 1990s onwards, especially robotics and nanotech. It was probably stolen from the Japanese if not alien. The can probably contained a paint laced with nanobots, which would get into the system and feedback the virus from the camera to the control units to the mainframe, the Doctor realised. 

They had waited a few moments to see if any alarms sounded and then Anton pulled out two flash drives from his watch and sat at the nearest terminal and began to search for passcodes and de-encryptions before searching for the Divine Farscape Programme. The Doctor had offered to do it, or at least take a second terminal, as,

“I have centuries of experience of this sort of thing, I’m rather good at it. Brilliant me. That’s me, the Doctor, brilliant at computer hacking.”

Anton looked at him for a few seconds before replying, “With the TARDIS translating everything for you. Right now, you’ll slow yourself down trying to slowly translate the characters.”

“That is true. What should I do then?”

“Sit there, watch the door, and look pretty.”

“Just look pretty? That’s not too hard, is it? I mean I am quite. Pretty. Little bit. Don’t you think?”

“Prettier silent.”

“Oh. Oh yeah. Quiet. Sit down, be quiet, and look pretty, like a good little Bond girl. I felt like that yesterday, Chantelle and Angel and Marie. Bond girls. Bond boy. Bond bitch I suppose. Actually no. I’m the baddie’s bitch aren’t I? You’re Russian, so I guess that makes you the baddie. But you quip like Bond. Plus you’re as sexy as Bond. So I’m going to say Bond boy. Are you sure I can’t do anything?”

“Doctor. Quiet. Please,” Anton pleaded through gritted teeth.

“The last time I was here I don’t remember. That never happens to me. They battered me and chipped and tattooed me a prostitute and dumped me. After four days. That’s four days I have missing. Bit nervous. Used to be the one doing the hacking. Have you found the TARDIS or Yu yet?”

“Be nervous quietly or I won’t find anything at all.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry.” The Doctor stood up and began to pace.

“And keep watching the door!” Anton hissed angrily.

That had been over half an hour ago. The Doctor was bored. So bored. He began to pace the large computer and communications room, still keeping a watch on the door. Suddenly he spotted something out of the corner of his eye in the far left corner of the room, a piece of dark tan material peeping out from under a large cupboard door. He rushed over in hope, and soon was confirming it was his coat. He considered telling Anton what he had found, but Anton had made it plain he wasn’t to be disturbed. He tried the door, but it was locked. He would have to bother Anton.

Anton looked up to see the Doctor looming over him with a silly grin after interrupting him with a polite cough.

“What? Are we still safe?”

“Oh yeah. I’ve found my coat. I just wanted your lock picking kit.”

“Left back pocket, help yourself sweetheart.”

“Thanks.”

It took the Doctor all of four seconds to get the door open and he pulled out his coat and hugged it tightly to himself. As he did so he saw a box further back, with a 1950s Penguin paperback peeping out. He reached for it but didn’t quite get to it and it fell, his possessions from his pockets spilling out with a crash!

“Fuck!” Anton yelled, shocked, standing up and looking towards the Doctor.

“Sorry. I’m sorry. Look, it’s all my things,” the Doctor called from his knees, bent over and retrieving his glasses, sweets and balls of string and a yoyo, along with everlasting matches, eyeliner, eye shadow, tinfoil, a cricket ball, a torch, an old fashioned spyglass from the eighteenth century, a compass, a hatpin, a comb, a random bunch of keys that he didn’t recognise, three felt tip pens of various colours, a mouldy apple and mank banana, and a tube of apple-scented lube, a grey Zhu Zhu, and of course, the paperback copy of P.G. Woodhouse’s ‘Right Ho Jeeves’, along with a small cuddly toy, a yellow and blue teddy bear.

The Doctor leant back, his lap now full of his possessions, and looked up at Anton, who was now standing over him. “They have the key. And my sonic and the psychic paper,” he said balefully. “What am I going to do?”

“You’ll find the key with the TARDIS, and we know that’s still with the...” Anton paused. “What was that?”

He rushed quickly back to the terminal he was using and pulled out the two flash drives and slid them back into his watch, and closed down his work, just as the door they locked behind them was kicked in and five Chinese soldiers burst in, pointing guns and yelling in Mandarin.

Anton immediately turned and raised his hands. He was immediately disarmed, pushed forward and yelled at until he knelt with his forehead to the floor. A soldier stood over, a gun pointed at his head, while two more headed to the back of the room and to the Doctor. He knelt where he was, arms raised, his possessions still spilling out from his lap and onto the floor.

“Up up up!” one of the soldiers shouted, while two more grabbed him by the arms and pulled him up to his feet and dragged him over to Anton and threw him on the floor, forcing him in the same position and another soldier pointed a gun at his head. The one in charge unclipped his radio and began to inform a superior of their discovery.

“I thought you said it was just civilian security in the early hours?” the Doctor hissed.

“It’s an Embassy. My information says it was empty but for two guards. They must have somehow detected the anti-camera virus,” Anton replied through gritted teeth.

“Quiet!” shouted the officer in charge in Mandarin.

They were kept like that for about fifteen minutes until another man arrived, this one in a suit. He barked a sharp order and the Doctor and Anton were pulled to their feet, handcuffed behind their backs, and pulled to the lifts and taken up three flights to a large office. The man sat behind a desk, the soldiers stood behind Anton and the Doctor, as they were pushed in front of the desk

“Ah Doctor. I can’t say I’m surprised to see you back. I am surprised to see you assisting a spy. You are KGB?”

“UNIT Russia. Lieutenant Commander Anton Pavel Roschenkov, 42317 oblique 57.”

“Such a shame you are not KGB, Russia has some people we’d like back. I’m not sure how the Kremlin feels about UNIT on their soil. There is one penalty for spying.”

Anton jutted his chin out and closed his eyes. The Doctor, however, wasn’t so stoical,

“What? What are you saying?”

“Your... companion is a spy. I can have him shot on the spot. Unless you have something to tell me, Lieutenant Commander Roschenkov?”

“Anton Pavel Roschenkov, 42317/57, rank Lieutenant Commander.”

“Surely you can tell me why you’re here and what you were looking for.”

“Anton Pavel Roschenkov, 42317/57, rank Lieutenant Commander.”

The man interviewing them raised a hand. The senior soldier levelled his gun at Anton’s head.

“No. Wait. You can’t just shoot him. We’re in Europe. It’s murder!” the Doctor panicked.

“We’re on Chinese soil Doctor. And the penalty for spying is death.”

“What?”

“If he was prepared to tell me why UNIT sent him or even if he were KGB, I might spare your companion.”

The soldier released the safety on his pistol with a click. The Doctor rushed forward to Anton, but was caught by two soldiers, but he kept moving and struggling as they held his arms. “No! He is KGB. He told me he is KGB!”

“Doctor...” Anton warned gently. “Let this go.”

Their interrogator looked to the officer and he redid the safely and lowered the weapon. “Tell me how you know this spy?”

“This! This that you put in me!” the Doctor yelled, half-hysterical, waving the tattoo on his wrist behind him, his arm held by a soldier. With a nod the soldiers released him and he rushed up to the desk, although with his hands cuffed behind his back he couldn’t wave it in the man’s face like he wished. “This! You branded me a prostitute. You gave me no choice. I was with an escort agency in Paris.”

“So this Russian spy is a homosexual? He fucked you and told you he was a KGB spy?” he smiled cruelly at Anton. “Gay, eh? I’m sure that is not known by KGB or UNIT Russia. Did you know what this man is?”

“Anton Pavel Roschenkov, 42317/57, rank Lieutenant Commander.”

“Anton...!”

“Shoot him.”

“Wait!” the Doctor rushed to try to put himself between the gun and Anton. “KGB, you said you can swap him...”

“I need to know what his orders were.”

As the Doctor heard the safety click off again he began to yell, words tumbling out, as soldiers again grabbed him by the upper arms and pulled him back. He struggled against them, kicking out desperately, trying to put himself between Anton and the gun, and one point, lifting both feet and stumbling, held only by the strength of the two soldiers imprisoning him. “He had no orders, I tricked him to coming here with me, I put a telepathic suggestion in his head while we were in bed. He thinks he had orders but he doesn’t. I wanted to know where my TARDIS and Commander Chan Yu are. You can’t kill him. He’s innocent. You must let him go!”

Their interrogator smiled coldly. “Lower your weapon and release the spy’s cuffs.” He looked to Anton menacingly, “Lieutenant Commander, remember that we here at the Chinese Embassy know of your deviant tastes and proclivities now. Quid pro quo, shall we say, if you wish to keep them secret. Your pretty catamite is an alien,” he said, watching Anton’s face carefully. Anton made his eye twitch but otherwise kept his impassive poker face he had kept throughout the entire time in the office. “Interesting isn’t it? Particularly for an UNIT agent? Black Ops no doubt, buried in deep in the KGB as a UNIT sleeper? Time to increase your double agent status by another factor I think.”

“I’d rather be shot than betray my country,” Anton spat out coldly in perfect Mandarin.

“I’m afraid the hysterical Doctor here has taken that off the table. Besides, you and I both know that in Russia there are worse things than being shot, and should your perversions become known...”

“This alien, you say, hypnotised me?” Anton looked at the Doctor, who winked slightly. “Shouldn’t he be handed over to EuroCombine’s UNIT HQ in Geneva? Neither you nor I have possession over an alien landed in their jurisdiction. I must say I have never come across an alien looking quite so human. I suppose it explains why he felt so cold to touch.”

“He returned a lost Chinese astronaut. We have jurisdiction and possession. He came to our Embassy, which is China.”

“What do you intend to do with him?”

“That is our business.”

“Forgive me for being concerned, but I thought he was a prostitute, nothing more. Sweet and harmless and pretty. I thought I persuaded him to come with me, as he was skinny enough to squeeze in an open window. Turns out I didn’t need to. You need to check your fire escape security.”

Anton glanced at the Doctor, who realised he was leaving him the ventilator shaft entrance in case he needed it. He looked down so as not to alert any soldiers to the brief eye contact.

“Thank you Lieutenant Commander. I look forward to a productive working relationship.”

Anton sighed. “I’m not a real spy. I’m a translator. A linguist. I work at the Embassy and I translate for KGB and UNIT call on me to try to speak to extra-terrestrials in Russian jurisdiction. I have little understanding what assistance I can be to the Chinese People’s Republic. However, since you know my secret, I guess I am at your service.” He bowed slightly and then straightened. “You’re not going to hurt the Doctor?”

The interrogator in the black suit smiled creepily. “Merely put him somewhere more secure until we are ready for him.”

Anton nodded. “Since we have an understanding, am I free to go?”

“Yes, Lieutenant Commander.”

“May I say goodbye to the Doctor?”

“If you must.”

Anton walked up to the Doctor and cupped his chin, making him look up, and in full view of the Chinese soldiers and interrogator, kissed him, open mouthed and hard, before kissing his jaw and neck, to his ear, to whisper, “Your two thousand euros are in my apartment, if you make it out. You’ll need them. Thank you, I think, for saving my life. This maybe an advantage rather than a curse.” He kissed the Doctor on the mouth again, this time more gently, then turned and left, two soldiers following to escort him off the premises.

“Initiate stage two,” the man in the suit said to the senior officer as soon as Anton and the two soldiers had left the room. The officer snapped his fingers and pointed at one of the two remaining soldiers, who also left the room. The remaining soldier trained his weapon on the Doctor, following him in his sights as the Doctor paced back and forth in front of the desk.

“What? What is stage two? You knew I’d come back?”

“Of course. If you were able to.”

“Leaving me bleeding internally with broken ribs and a damaged kidney made in hard, I can tell you. Never mind this chip and tattoo. Everywhere I go I get treated like a second class citizen.”

His interrogator smiled ironically, “That is probably more to your sounding and looking British.”

“Whenever I’ve been here before, for a time span of over a thousand years, Britain has been respected as honourable, as democratic, as trustworthy! What has gone wrong? This isn’t right!”

“Really? As you talk of the past, I beg to disagree, as I know my history, and the British Empire’s conduct upon my people was a shameful one. If you talk of the future, I feel such knowledge would be useful. However my superiors seem to believe such knowledge is dangerous.”

“What do you want with the TARDIS then?”

“It travels in space too, does it not? It can materialise and dematerialise at will. It contains all sorts of medical knowledge within. We know this from the health of former companions. I tell you this because there is nothing you can do to stop us getting the secrets. You, too, are fascinating.”

“So you turn me into a prostitute?” yelled the Doctor.

“Would torturing you work?” he was asked, matter of fact, as the Doctor didn’t notice the soldier return to the room and walk straight up behind him, a cotton wad in his hand.

“No! I’d never...” but the Doctor’s sentence was muffled and then unfinished as his nose was covered in the wad, soaked in chloroform, and he slipped into dark oblivion, never hearing the officer turn to his soldier and demand,

“Did you get the Rohypnol too?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: canon type violence and threats as the Doctor and Anton are caught and interrogated  
> TW: homophobic language and insults  
> TW: the Doctor is drugged


	7. The Master of the Brothel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MAJOR TRIGGER WARNING BELOW. 
> 
> CHECK BEFORE READING.  
> SKIPPING THIS CHAPTER WILL NOT LOSE TOO MUCH AS YOU WILL BE ABLE TO PICK UP PLOT IN NEXT ONE.  
> OR MESSAGE ME AND I CAN GIVE YOU A CHAPTER SUMMARY.

The Doctor slowly became aware of sounds and smells and light. He felt as if he were deep under water and struggling to swim to the surface. Light played over his eyelids and as he surfaced he felt dizzy, vomit and bile suddenly rising to his throat.

The Doctor sat up hurriedly, in a panic, but that made the dizziness worse. He leant over and vomited where he was, hardly noticing anything more until his mostly dry retching had finished, his throat burning and his mouth tasting of salt and bile. He coughed and sat up more slowly. He flinched as he realised he was naked, lying on a large king-size bed covered in red satin sheets. He leapt up to his knees, pulling at the sheet under him to wrap it about him toga style. Modesty covered and feeling marginally safer he took in his surroundings. The dizziness was fading now. The light was coming from a line of three windows to the left of the bed and a door faced it, there was another door and a large easy chair and small coffee table to the right.

He leapt up and rushed to the door, trying it, but, of course, it was locked. The door to the right led to a small bathroom, with a toilet, basin, and small shower stall. Desperate, he rushed over to the windows. He was high up, so high up, the dizziness returned momentarily. The windows were sealed, obviously intended never to be open. They were also thick, at least triple glazed. Even if there was something heavy enough, the Doctor doubted he could smash his way out. Even if he could, there was no sign of a fire escape, railing, or anything else possible to attempt to climb down. He appeared to be fifteen stories up, at the very least, so realistically there was no way down if the windows could be opened.

The Doctor looked about the room, panicked, and then ran to the large chair, nearly tripping over the slippy sheet he’d wrapped himself in, and pulled the chair over to the door, tipping it to stop the door handle turning down and pushing it flat against the door. He then piled the table on top of it and sat on the end of the bed, his breathing coming out in short, panicked breaths and stared, wide-eyed, at the newly barricaded door.

He started to rock slightly. “You’re fine. You are fine Doctor,” he told himself out loud. “Absolutely fine. Safe now. They can’t get in. Don’t think. Don’t think about that.”

Can’t not think though, can I? You’ve been raped Doctor, he thought to himself.

“No, no. It’s. There’s no evidence for that!”

Body’s full of evidence, what are you on about?

“No. Stop that! Stop it!”

Several times.

“No. No I haven’t. I’m fine.”

No you’re not.

“No I’m not,” he whispered to himself, and brought his legs up to the bed and hugged his knees, rocking further, tears silently falling down his cheeks. He lay down and curled up on his side, still looking at the door and listening intently. He’d heard a vacuum cleaner somewhere when he’d first woken up, but that had stopped. He could hear a radio and someone singing along in German. He concentrated on his breathing and counted his breaths, in one two three, out one two three...

He hurt. He ached and he was sore inside and out and he felt sick. He also felt weak and shaky and hungry. He pulled back a bit of the sheet and looked at bruising over his thigh, thick finger bruising in many places. He covered his leg quickly and looked at his wrist, the one with that damned tattoo. It was bruised too, as if he’d been held and struggled. Good, he struggled even when drugged. Good Doctor. Don’t give in so easily.

A sob escaped and he covered his mouth with his hands and started to rock again.

The Hoover started up somewhere again and he could hear some women talking in Vietnamese and giggling. Then heavy footsteps and someone tried the door. Holding his breath the Doctor stood up and stared at the door.

“Hey! What he’s done? The door is stuck!” someone yelled. In German. The Doctor blinked. He could understand what people where saying and in what language. He Reached but was blocked. Not his TARDIS. Not his TARDIS? What other TARDIS could there be? Was he actually in an alternative reality with Time Lords? Was he not the last here? How did he get here? The voids between the worlds were sealed. Unless...?

He had more pressing problems to worry about. 

“Bastard’s barricaded it,” a second man replied.

“I’ll get the Madam.”

“No, we can open it. Oi, open the fucking door, you skinny bastard bitch!”

The Doctor rushed up and grabbed the lamp off the nightstand and stood behind the door with it raised as a man started pushed hard against it. Already the chair was sinking and moving back.

“What is happening?” a woman with a crystal cut classy accent demanded. “Kurt says the door is blocked?”

“Yeah, he’s put the chair against it by the feel of it. Almost there though Madam.”

“Help Andre, Kurt.”

“Sure.”

The table fell off the chair and then both flew across the room to the bed as the door flung open. The Doctor tried to bring the lamp down on the head of the first man who came in, but his wrist was caught by the second and twisted until he dropped the lamp and was pulled down onto his knees. The Doctor yelled in pain.

“I was told when he arrived he would need breaking,” the woman said. She had short hair dyed purple and purple framed glasses and was dressed in a black short skirt suit and high black boots, perhaps early fifties. “Now, will you calm down boy?”

“I’m not a boy!” the Doctor yelled up at her.

“I know!” she yelled back, and nodded to the man holding his wrist. He released him, but only to hit the Doctor across the cheek with a swift and painful backhander.

The Doctor sank fully to the floor and wrapped the sheet more fully around him. “Where am I?”

“This place is called Butterflies, a rather exclusive brothel.”

“But where... I was in Brussels, at the Chinese Embassy. Whoever brought me here, whoever sold me, who said... this!” the Doctor held up his wrist, “this was done without my consent. I was drugged and abandoned. They stole a very important item from me. I went back to recover it and they drugged me and I woke up here. Whatever you think I am, I’m not...”

“I know exactly who you are Doctor. And what. But you are still here to work. Come.” She nodded to the two heavies, who dragged the Doctor to his feet roughly. The sheet fell off. The woman looked at him appraisingly. “Nice. Bit scrawny. But pretty. Nice hair. Very nice hair. Know exactly the kind of client who’ll pay good money to fuck you. Not a bad agreement.” She turned to the blond man, the one called Kurt. “Take him to room 3, it’s empty now and can be his. See he’s showered, shaved and dressed, and bring him to my office.”

“If he refuses?”

“Break him.”

The Doctor refused to cooperate. They broke him. Breaking him scared the life out of Kurt and Andre. 

*

“So you crashed on this planet as soon as the module shot out of the wormhole?”

“Yes. Yes! How many times?” Yu cried desperately. He was dressed in grey top and trousers, bare foot and his head shaved, dirty and grimy and sweaty – he couldn’t remember when he had last been allowed to wash. He was also covered in bruises and cuts. They were deep underground in a top-secret base, in a bare concrete room. The building above was one of many dummy companies of the China Aerospace Industry Corporation in Shanghai. His feet were shackled and he sat on a metal chair, the interrogator opposite. Several other men, both in suits and in military uniform, were in the room, and everything was being recorded.

“Tell me again how you survived?”

“I juggled. My parents work in the State Circus. Or did. I went to the Circus School until I matriculated highest in physics for the whole of my Province. For the whole country! But you know all this. It’s on my file. How many times. There was no technology. There was a spaceport and a maglev train for tourists, but I couldn’t access them or get to them. The local people used gas or oil lamps and fire powered ranges and walked everywhere. I think it was their choice. I juggled and tumbled to earn enough to eat. I was there until the Doctor arrived.”

“So you were on this planet for a year?”

Yu hesitated for a moment, and then stuck to the story he had decided on. He had come home to share all the wonders he had seen in the future and on alien worlds, to share all of the technology and knowledge he’d learnt after six months of travelling with the Doctor, it was why he’d come home. He was a loyal Chinese citizen. Or rather, he had been. Now he hated them. The Doctor would come for him, he knew he would, he just had to stay alive and not give them any information they weren’t meant to have. “Yeah. About a year. The Doctor brought me home.”

“How many times will you deny being the Doctor’s companion? You must have seen much. This is misguided loyalty. Do you think the Time Lord will remain loyal to you?”

Yu grimaced, keeping his mouth shut.

The man interviewing nodded to a comrade, who stepped forward with a laptop. The interrogator opened it up and clicked on a video file and turned it on, spinning the laptop so the screen was in front of Yu. “I don’t think your alien bum boy remained loyal to you at all, you disgusting, filthy, shirt lifter.”

Yu put his hand to his mouth. He didn’t think the Doctor was betraying him in the least. Betrayal required consent and being fully aware and conscious.

“What have you done to him?” he cried out, disgusted, turning his head and closing his eyes.

*

The Doctor lay curled up on his side, his breathing coming out in ragged breaths. He’d stopped sobbing a while ago; he didn’t have any left in him. He didn’t think there was a place that didn’t hurt or wasn’t bruised, and the bleeding hadn’t stopped properly. He couldn’t think of an escape plan, and only Yu knew he was here, and he had no idea where Yu was, whether he was alive or dead or a ‘people’s hero’ who had betrayed him. He didn’t think the last was likely, but in his darker moments it kept crossing his mind. He tried to summon an imagery companion to keep his spirits, but he couldn’t think of one who wouldn’t either go to pieces at what had just happened to him, or would declare all out war and get her or himself killed (Ace and Jamie mainly). Donna would know, Donna would look after him, but if he had a companion, they would be in the same situation and that would be intolerable, better him than any of them.

Waking up earlier to discover he’d been drug assisted raped was nothing to how he felt now, after those men had...

What he had to do now was survive until an opportunity of escape presented itself. Or that Yu was alive, escaped, and found him. Life was always a better option, regardless of the saying ‘fate worse that death’.

For a few moments at felt at the time he had felt like he wanted to die. But he had survived.

“You’re alive Doctor,” he whispered to himself, but regretted it, his voice was so hoarse and sore from all the screaming he’d done. “Up you get then,” he told himself in an even hoarser whisper and stood, shaking and swaying for a few moments before he stumbled forward to the room’s small en suite shower.

The clothes were pale super skinny jeans with rips in the knees and a tight white tee shirt and red converses. No underwear. He looked at himself in the mirror. He didn’t look like himself at all. Sighing deeply he sorted his hair out. This was not like anything he’d ever experienced before. Taking a deep breath he opened the door. Kurt was waiting outside. The Doctor tried not to flinch. He didn’t notice Kurt also looked equally uncomfortably at him.

“Okay, I’ll behave myself,” he said softly, looking down.

“The Madam wants to talk to you. This way.”

The room he’d been put in was along a corridor with many similar doors, rather like an hotel. They came to double doors that opened onto an atrium with a spiral staircase ascending in the middle. There were easy chairs, tables and chairs, a bar, and a small dance floor and a pole dancing stage. There were also the main doors that led out of the place, the Doctor noted. He had been dragged down those stairs earlier, but hadn’t been able to spy the exit. There were two neckless apes in ill-fitting suits with earpieces, and from the hang of the jackets, guns in shoulder holsters, at the door, guarding it. A young woman was polishing glasses behind the bar.

They went through a second lot of double doors, which led to a second, smaller, open space, a kitchen-living room. Young women and one young man ranged about a large dining table and across the two large sofas in hardly any clothes, those they wore tight and revealing. A TV was switched on, high on the wall, showing the news. The tickertape at the bottom of the screen was talking of death camps and rumours of cannibalism in the former UK, predicting war between the United States and the Canada-Mexico coalition, talking of burning Arabian oil fields and famine under the ash, out of control bush fires in Australia leading to further risk of famine. The screen was showing a remarkably familiar face making a speech about his corporation’s invention, the Suncatcher, along with the already invented Rainmaker, that should bring farming back in so many devastated areas. It made the Doctor feel very queasy, seeing someone look so like a sleazy, madder, version of his former self. Maybe time was on track?

But no. Of course not. Britain and America shouldn’t be out of the loop, should not be evil rogue states. But if this wasn’t his universe...?

*

The Doctor sat down at the large dining table after his pep talk from the owner, or his owner, technically, although it was a technicality that the Doctor refused to recognise and would rectify as soon as an escape opportunity presented itself. He felt empty and numb, as if he couldn’t cry anymore. Someone smiled and patted his shoulder while another girl offered him tea. Both were Vietnamese.

“Tea,” he replied softly.

“English style?”

“Please.”

“I’ll put some honey in it, you need to sort out that sore throat before tonight.”

A Kenyan girl walked up to the table, “Are you hungry? I’m Maya.”

The Doctor nodded, “Little bit. Yeah. Can’t actually remember when I last ate.” Oh. It was at Anton’s apartment. A stew mostly made of carrots and potatoes and a bit of beef, with more of the heavy EuroCombine rations bread. Before they broke into the Embassy.

On the television the German political correspondent and anchor people were dissecting Salamander’s speech. Viewers were tweeting their views, which replaced the rolling news ticker. Was he currently on the other side of the world with Victoria and dear Jamie? Wasn’t Hungary about to...?

One more thing to worry about!

He’d not being paying attention to the introductions. Maya, Mai, Li-Lu, Lucy, Kara and Carlotta. The other man, the other rent boy, he supposed, just sat on the sofa repetitively playing a game on a tablet and ignored everyone. 

He waved a vague hello, “Hello. I’m the Doctor. I didn’t choose this you know.”

“Do you think anyone of us did?” the man snorted from the back of the room, not looking up from his tablet.

“They drugged me. I was at the Embassy. I’ve got to get out of here! I have to find my friend and my TARDIS...”

“What’s that?”

“My... forget it.”

“No, what?” asked Maya, placing a plate of a few slices of cold meat, cheese, salad and fruit in front of him. She handed him another grey, heavy, piece of bread to go with it.

“My space-time ship,” the Doctor mumbled, looking down.

The other man laughed, barking out a harsh cruel laugh. “Crazy boy!” he sneered. “Completely crazy.”

“Ignore Stefan,” Carlotta said.

“Your tea,” Li-Lu said.

“Thank you.”

“And he’s not crazy Stefan,” Carlotta snapped, “I heard Kurt and Andre freak out after they broke him. And the Madam told them to shut up, she knew. He’s got a premium. No condoms.”

“What?” the Doctor practically squealed, dropping the stick of celery he’d been about to bite.

“Fuuuuck!” Stefan drawled, getting up to join the women and the Doctor. 

“Yes. Fuck!” the Doctor agreed unhappily. “Little bit. Just a tiny massive bit.”

“You’re still not getting out of here without the Madam’s permission. Triple locks and guards at all times. Too far up to climb even if the windows weren’t sealed. Best accept your fate. We’ll lose our value one day. Then it’s kicked out with backlogged wages and the streets for you.”

“I don’t think I’m allowed out. Think the Chinese have me on ice,” the Doctor replied sadly, pushing his plate away.

Just then the woman they all called the Madam walked in, clapping her hands. “Right boys and girls, we have an afternoon booking. Into your rooms and get ready. You, Doctor, take your food and drink and stay until your called. I doubt you’re ready. Not with those bruises.”

*

The Doctor lay on the bed in the room they had put him in, picking at the food, forcing himself to eat, as he knew he would need strength. Once he was sure all the others had gone to the Atrium in their working clothes, which he thought they were already wearing, he snuck down the corridor to listen. He was curious. A brothel was not a place he had knowingly been in ever, in any incarnation.

He listened. Mood music was put on, two girls went behind the bar to serve, and one onto the dance pole, who the Doctor couldn’t see, he could only hear the Madam give orders.

The doors opened. The two guards, the two heavies, plus the clients were all between him and making a dash for the door.

“You are most welcome, gentleman, please come and have a drink, enjoy our hospitality, let me know who takes your eye.”

It grew actually very boring. The Doctor was about to go back to his room when he heard the strike of an old-fashioned match and smelt a Cuban cigar being smoked.

“You do not like what you see, Sir” he heard the Madam say.

“No. I’m here to reward my employees before an important commission,” a cold voice replied. It rang a bell of recognition deep in the Doctor’s subconscious, but he couldn’t consciously admit to it. It sounded of fear and excitement of chase and games of cleverness and cruelty, of anger and despair and love.

“Does Stefan not please you at least?” Madam asked slyly.

“No. He does not,” the man said, after some lengthy consideration.

“I can offer you our other rent boy, if you like, our special one. I’m afraid he is not at his best, still very pretty, but... he fell down the stairs.”

“You mean he needed disciplining?”

“He is very contrary Sir, this is true. He is also very exclusive, guaranteed one hundred percent incapable of any infection, you can have him condom free, but he comes at a cost.”

“How can you guarantee such a thing?”

“You would not believe me Sir.”

“Try me,” the man said, sounding amused. The Doctor guessed the proprietor must have whispered, as the man then said matter of fact and slightly irritated, “You can only guarantee him clear of human infection. Had you thought of that? Show me this special whore?”

The Doctor legged it back to his room, getting there only seconds before Kurt, who threw at him the tightest, shortest, demin cut off jean shorts the Doctor had even seen. “Put these on and follow me,” he snapped.

As he came into the Atrium and looked across the floor to the bar the Doctor had to cover his face with his hand to literally wipe off the huge smile crossing his face. Leaning on the bar, smoking a large cigar, was a short man who gave the impression of immense power. He was dressed in an immaculate, classic cut, black, suit and a Prydonian orange tie, with silver cuff links and watch chain. His hair was greying and swept back from his face with a widow’s peak. His goatee beard was trimmed, black and grey, with two symmetrical white stripes either side of his mouth. In the hand that didn’t hold the cigar he held a pair of black leather gloves. On his finger he wore a gold ring set with a black stone. A ring the Doctor knew very well. He had one of his own, set with a red stone. 

“Hello,” the Doctor said brightly, looking into the Master’s eyes.

“I can only apologise...” began the Madam.

“You are right, he does need disciplining. Badly,” the Master replied, looking back into the slightly mad eyes of the Doctor with his own cold ones, a curiosity burning with all the intensity of a fusion generator.

“Oh yes I do,” the Doctor said, grinning insanely. The Madam looked at him suspiciously. “What,” he said, turning his slightly mad stare on her, “this is what you wanted of me, isn’t it?”

“Take your client to your room when’s he’s ready,” she replied, moving away to give them privacy.

“Oh, I think I’m ready now. Show me.”

“This way Sir.”

“You will address me as the Master,” said the Master as they approached the double doors.

“Oh yes. Absolutely Koschei. Always,” the Doctor replied in Gallifreyan as they went through the doors. He wasn’t surprised to feel himself spun around and pinned to the wall in the corridor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: RAPE. VIOLENCE.
> 
> Classic fans will spot the Salamander references...
> 
>  
> 
> TW: the Doctor wakes up to realise he has been drug assisted raped, he is then raped later on in the chapter, none of the actual violence and assaults are described  
> TW: psychological torture, implied physical torture, of Chan Yu.


	8. A Unusually Masterly Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Master finds himself strangely discombobulated by the predicament of this future Doctor. He, in his own unique way, is the perfect gentleman...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings below

“You will address me as the Master,” said the Master as they approached the double doors.

“Oh yes. Absolutely Koschei. Always,” the Doctor replied in Gallifreyan as they went through the doors. He wasn’t surprised to feel himself spun around and pinned to the wall in the corridor.

“Who are you?” the Master demanded angrily.

“Oh. You know that Master. It’s me. The Doctor. You’re so young. Look at you. I’m on my twelfth regeneration you know. Oh, it is good to see you!” he said, moving into a hug.

The Master took an abrupt step backwards, removing his hand from the Doctor’s shoulder. He looked horrified. “Doctor, if you are who you say you are, I really will not contaminate the timelines.”

“You do all sorts of things.”

“I will not jeopardise Time. Temporal cause and effect were always a little vague with you. Show me your room and we will talk. But I will not risk contact and accidental future knowledge by touching you.”

“They think you’re more than touching me,” the Doctor said, leading them to room 3 and opening the door.

“The pathetic monkeys can think what they,” the Master replied, surveying the small room. He picked up the plate of half eaten food and bread from the counter pain and put it on the nightstand, ground out his cigar on the plate, and then sat on the bed and looked at the Doctor. “Well? I can only assume this is some end of life crisis. Why look so young and beautiful?”

“Do you really think I look beautiful?”

“What I think was clearly irrelevant to you centuries ago. What are you doing here, in a brothel, as a whore?”

“It’s not my choice. They stole my TARDIS and drugged me, they chipped and tattooed me as a prostitute and I tried to go back to find my TARDIS and they drugged me again and I woke here to find... to find I’d been...” the Doctor ran out of steam and looked down, ashamed, “raped,” he whispered, sitting down next to the Master. “Then when I refused to cooperate they beat me and... and raped me... again. I’m sorry.”

The Master checked his impulse to pull the Doctor into a hug. There was far too much skin on show; he didn’t want to make telepathic contact at all costs. “You were careless but why apologise to me? Why apologise at all? It’s not your fault. Where is your TARDIS?”

“It’s being taken to China on a train, but I still have no idea where. I have to get back into the Embassy and find it’s location and then get there. By train. No planes. Have you seen the sky? It’s full of volcanic ash and dust. Was that supposed to happen? I’m sure it wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“Do you not have a companion?”

The Doctor thought of Yu for a moment, who may have betrayed him, but was in any case wanting to leave him. “No. Not anymore. They get hurt...”

The Master’s hand hovered over the Doctor’s shoulder. He whipped it away and pulled on his gloves. “Well Doctor, here we are,” he said, confused. Why was this Doctor so happy to see him? There could only be only one reason. “Do you wish me to rescue you?”

“Would you? Could you? I mean I wouldn’t want to intrude on your plans but... please. Yes please. Pretty please Master. You could even have me here, first, if you want. As payment. A favour. You don’t need to connect, we can do it just physically, like humans...”

The Master stood abruptly, horrified. “Silence Doctor. You babble as much as you did as a loomling! I will not do such a thing. What am I to become that you think I would make love to you under such abhorrent conditions. You’ve been raped, repeatedly. The object is to get you out of here as fast as possible so it doesn’t happen again. And do not answer my question; it was rhetorical.”

“Master. Please.”

“Quiet. I’m on a very tight schedule. I cannot jeopardise that. I’m thinking. In the meantime get out of those ridiculous clothes.”

“I don’t have anything else but these jeans,” the Doctor said, picking them up, saying the word jeans in English, as Gallifreyan had no equivalent word.

“Then put then on, they are marginally more modest and seemly.”

“Yes Master.”

“Could you please stop being so accommodating and obedient Doctor, it’s disconcerting. I’m beginning to think wanting is more pleasing than having.”

“Sorry,” the Doctor said, wriggling out of the demin cuff offs, watching the Master watch. “What are you doing in a brothel anyway?”

“It is none of your business.”

“You’re my husband.”

“You made it plain centuries ago that is no longer the case, and never will be. The phrase ‘not if you were the last Time Lord in all of time and space’ springs to mind. Preposterous idea.”

“I was wrong,” the Doctor whispered unhappily. “So wrong.”

“Put your jeans on and stop it. I do not wish to know my future.”

“But it’s still a question. I was here against my will. You’re not.”

“You plainly saw I was rewarding my human employees and was content to drink my fine Scotch and smoke and wait for them to sate their base instincts. I was offered an alien and I grew curious. I didn’t expect to find my...” the Master paused, looking up, horrified, as the Doctor began to pick bits of food off the plate, wiping off the cigar ash and eat, “... husband,” he completed, making it sound like a severe reprimand.

The Doctor looked back and sat down. The Master had pulled a bag of aniseed balls from his pocket and was offering them to the Doctor, “Here, sort your blood sugar out with these.”

“Thank you.”

“Which men raped you?”

“Kurt, the blond very white one, and Andre, the dark skinned one. I have no idea who did when I was drugged, but I don’t think it’s the two by the door. Why?”

“No high morals please dear Doctor.”

“What?”

“The first, most obvious solution would be to offer to buy you. But if intimidation is needed...” the Master shrugged.

“No! You can’t. Master please...”

The Master reached forward and touched the Doctor’s nose with his gloved finger. “Do you honestly think any man who rapes you would be allowed to remain alive? I only intend to shoot them. Flaying alive would be more apt.” The Master quickly looked away, not liking the sadness and deep sorrow he saw in the Doctor’s eyes. What was he to become that the Doctor’s hurt implied... that of him? What was the Doctor to become that he would still be so happy to see him? He shook off the thoughts. Knowing ones future was dangerous. He continued, focused once more, “However, I will see to my men first. I have authority to maintain, at least for three more days. Let me deal with this after I’ve had them return to the city.” The Master stood. “I shall make inquiries now as to your price.”

“But... but...”

“What?”

“Don’t leave me. Please. Not yet. Besides, if I’m so brilliant you want to buy me, we need to make it last longer.”

“Quite true,” the Master said, sitting again.

“So, why are you here?” the Doctor asked, indistinctly, mouth full of aniseed balls

“So you can stop me once I’ve rescued you. I think not!” the Master snorted.

“We’re so far out of sequence. I can’t come into your timeline and prevent you doing anything. That’s for my younger self to do. If I’m about? Otherwise you’ll get away with it. I’m not so stupid about timey wimey stuff you know.”

“Timey wimey!” exploded the Master in utter scathing disgust.

“Cause and effect, the interconnectedness of all space-time, the repercussions of consequence before action, the dangers of crossed time-streams. Better Master?”

“Marginally. Obviously the quality of your companions has deteriorated. Whatever happened to the delightful Miss Jo Grant?”

“Oh. She got married. Happily. Had many children. Am I allowed to say that? Not too much future information.”

“I left Earth and your younger, exiled, self, some time ago.”

“So, what are you up to? Not altering the course of time are you? Didn’t manipulate Britain into becoming a xenophobic, fascist, dictatorship, did you?”

The Master looked coolly at the Doctor for a short while, before replying thoughtfully, “Yes, I had noticed something slightly amiss with the EuroZone. English is still their official language, although most of the educated seem to be speaking Russian and Chinese too. Time can be in flux. One small island is neither here nor there to the main course of events. There will still be the first great leap to space in a few decades. They will still become the monsters of the galaxy in less than a millennia.”

“I disagree. They should be still at the centre of the financial sector. They need to fund and insure the first great leap.”

“I know they are your favourite humans, but get a proper sense of perspective. It will happen. Besides, one thing I did need was capital for this venture. The City of London has upped and moved itself to Frankfurt in its entirety.”

“So, what is this venture? Do you have any more sweets? I’m so hungry. I think I’ve eaten three times in a week or more.”

The Master pulled a bag of mint humbugs from the same pocket and passed the Doctor. “If you must know, I’m after the Koh-i-Noor Diamond. The British royal family no longer need it. It’s on display here in the city, at the Pergamonmuseum for three more days. I intend to replace it with glass. I have assembled a crack team of cat burglars, thieves, and forgers, that humanity can provide in this time.”

“It’s a bit mundane for you, isn’t it? Diamond stealing.”

“That diamond has immense power. In the right setting it can be a most effective weapon of defence. Particularly against certain psychavores and haemaforms.”

“I know,” the Doctor said flatly.

“Well, what need does Earth have of such a weapon?”

“None. Now,” the Doctor sighed and scratched the back of his head. The Master gave him a curious look. “Spoilers,” he said, grinning. “Thing is, why do you need such a weapon?”

“Oh. I don’t. You have heard of the Cassius Sector Alliance from the Third Era?”

“Over in the Centaurus Galaxy? What are you doing out there?”

“I have formed an alliance with the young Tetrach. A weak, easy manipulated, boy. I essentially rule three quadrants of the galaxy. It’s diverting. Just a slight problem within the royal family.”

“They’re werewolves?”

“Not quite. And not Tarquin.”

“Oh. Tarquin is it? Tetrach Tarquin? Does as his Master tells him does he?”

“Jealous Doctor?”

“Not in the least. I’ve never had any desire to rule anything with you. I’ve told you enough times!” the Doctor snapped. He breathed out and then looked at the Master sideways, through his eyelashes. “You’re not sleeping with him, are you?”

“It’s none of your business, Doctor. You’ve made quite plain it was none of your business.”

“Yeah. Little bit jealous. Tiny big bit,” the Doctor mumbled under his breath.

The Master smiled. “Good.” He stood up.

“Where are you going?”

“To get rid of my employees then inquire into your price. I’m rescuing you, remember?”

“Yeah. Thank you Master.”

“Stop that.”

“What?”

“Being demure.”

“Sorry. I can never win with you, can I?”

“You always win,” the Master spat out vehemently and walked into the tiny bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror, smoothing his hair and beard. A dumped towel caught his eye, white towelling splashed with bright orange-red Gallifreyan blood. He picked it up and carried it to the Doctor. “What’s this?”

“Blood. My blood.”

The Master roughly dragged the Doctor to his feet and then ripped back the counter pain off the bed, still holding the Doctor’s bare arm in his gloved hand. There were more splashes of blood over the sheet. He turned the Doctor around and saw more blood, a dried pool on the seat of the jeans. The Doctor pulled away and flinched as he saw the rage in the Master’s eyes. Violence and rage and the bloodthirsty need for revenge, the need to kill and hurt and maim.

“Master. No. You need to keep calm. I’m fine. Look, it stopped ages ago. Please Master, you need to get out of here, you have a project to finish and me to rescue...”

The Master breathed out. His eyes returned to normal. He took two breaths before saying calmly, “I did not realise they had harmed you so much.”

“It’s probably my fault, I didn’t stay still, I didn’t stop fighting and struggling and screaming with every breath...” the Doctor stopped speaking as he felt himself swept into a tight hug, his hair stroked.

“I will get you out of here before they open for regular business this evening, this I promise. I swear it Doctor. I’m going now but I will be back for you. No one else will rape you. I promise.” With that, the Master released the Doctor and walked out of the room without a backwards glance. The Doctor was surprised and disgusted with himself that he burst into immediate, messy, tears.

*

Andre flung open the door two hours later and pulled the Doctor to his bare feet and dragged him immediately towards the door, not giving him a chance to get his shoes. “Come. The Madam said to bring you immediately.”

Andre escorted the Doctor to the Madam’s office and then remained, by the door. Kurt stood beside the Madam, assuming a very typical bodyguard stance, folding his arms to reveal a gun holster under his suit jacket. In a chair in front of her desk sat the Master.

“Do you recognise this man?” the Madam demanded of the Doctor.

“Oh yeah, he’s the man from earlier. My first client, you could say. First man I had sex with,” the Doctor added with absolute truth.

“Nothing more?”

“Should there be?”

“What do you know of him?”

“What do you mean? He didn’t talk to me about his business or anything. He likes to be called the Master. A very controlling, sadistic, dom, big into bondage and discipline. That’s all I can tell you. Does that help?”

The Master raised an eyebrow at the Doctor. It wasn’t something he’d ever considered the Doctor would say aloud, to anyone.

“He wants to buy you.”

“Really? Bet the people who put me here would have something to say. As for me, I’d happily go.” The Doctor looked at the Master. “I’ll escape you know.”

“No. You would never get away from me,” the Master said sternly, a slight twitch of a smile playing on his lips. He turned back to the Madam. “Name your price?”

“He does not belong to me. It’s more that I can risk to sell him. I can make a profit from working him only.”

“Like a wealthy man’s prize race horse, no doubt, in your stables. May I know who owns him to negotiate a price?”

“He’s not for sale. Why should you be so interested?”

“He’s an alien. That is a thing worth owning for its own sake.”

“Nevertheless, I am sorry Herr Meister, he is not for sale.”

The Master shrugged. “Ah, well, you must know I tried Doctor,” the Master said, standing and pulling both tissue compression eliminator and a staser from each pocket and firing simultaneously with both hands at Andre and Kurt. The Doctor watched in horror as Kurt shrivelled up, his scream dying in the air before he himself did. He spun around, to see Andre fall to the floor, a blacked tissue burn spreading from his midriff as the clothing was vaporised. 

“Master!” he cried out in shock.

The Madam, stood, her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide in shock and fear.

“You are alien too,” she stuttered.

“Indeed Madam, indeed. Sorry to have inconvenienced you over the loss of your staff. I am quite prepared to recompense you over your loss. Can we now talk reasonably?” the Master asked, pocketing the staser but levelling the matter tissue compression eliminator on the human female.

“What do you mean?”

“I will give you money to hide these bodies and not inform the authorities and tell the Chinese organization that brought the Doctor here that he escaped under his own volition.”

“How much?”

“Will ten thousand Euros be sufficient?” 

“Um, yes, just go. Take the Doctor and go. I’ve no idea why you want him, but go!”

The Master toyed with the gun in his hand for a while, looking at the corpses and the woman. “I should kill you too, you ordered those men to hurt the Doctor. Instead I will help you.” He pulled the staser back out from his pocket and fired first at the charred corpse, then the twisted, shrunken one, and both dissolved to ashes. He replaced both guns then pulled an envelope from his inside jacket pocket and threw it on the floor. It was full of banknotes. “Please notify your security on the door that I will be leaving with the Doctor now. No one is to attempt to stop me, or I will kill you. It is a promise. Your security can shoot us if they like, but we’ll regenerate and kill you slowly. Come along Doctor.”

The Doctor was still staring at the ashes where the bodies of two of his rapists had been, horrified. He looked up at the Madam. “I’m sorry...” he stuttered, “I wouldn’t... I’d never...”

“Doctor! Come along!” the Master called, irritated, from the door.

“Go,” she said. “Just get out of here.”

*

They were silent in the lift down. All righteous anger and horror at what the Master did was buried in so many levels of numbness and pain the Doctor couldn’t find the energy to lecture or argue, the Master controlling his natural curiosity concerning the future and fighting also the impulse to hug the Doctor tightly. It was a disconcerting and ancient feeling, one he’d not felt for so long, nor one he had any right to. 

The Doctor expected to just go once they exited the building, but instead the Master removed his jacket and wrapped it around the Doctor’s shaking shoulders and put an arm around him. The Doctor shivered and wrapped it around himself and tipped his head up to watch the grey sleet fall on his face. His bare feet slipped on the dusty ice and ash. He let the Master gently lead him across the concrete and tarmac.

“The car is not far,” the Master reassured him.

“Where are we going?” 

“My TARDIS.”

The Doctor pulled away from the Master’s arm, almost skidding backwards and falling. The Master caught him. “Wait a minute! Just a little minute!” the Doctor cried out as he slipped back further and struggled to right himself. The Master put his other powerful arm around his waist. “Why are you taking me to your TARDIS? You talked of not breaking timelines and...?”

“I’m still rescuing you. I’m taking you to the TARDIS medical bay. I’m removing that chip, I’ll remove the tattoo also, and we can check you for internal injuries. You need to eat, you need to bathe, and you need proper clothing. I’ve already organized a passport, ID card, ration book, and money cards. All I need is your picture. Trust me this little while longer. I know you want to flee. Running away is what you do best Doctor, isn’t it? But I won’t let you. Do you really think I’ll let you just go off in jeans and tee shirt with no shoes in the snow with that prostitution tag in your wrist?” The Master finally stopped. The Doctor never let him get a word in, not since they were small boys together playing on the mountains above the Doctor’s ancestral home, let alone make a long monologue. He looked up at the Doctor, who was crying silently. “Come on, we’re here,” he said for something to disguise how moved he felt. He unlocked the car and opened the passenger seat. The Doctor handed the Master his jacket back and wordlessly climbed in. The Master walked round and got in to drive. He debated on saying something, but couldn’t bear to hear the lie, the denial of tears.

*

 

They drove further out of Berlin and into the country. Eventually the Master turned off the main road and up a twisting drive up hill. It was so black, no sign of the moon or a single star, the car’s lights making two blue-white pools ahead with their LED lights. Eventually a few yellow-lit windows came into view and the Doctor realised there were trees either side. The Master parked his dinky sports BMW next to three other cars and a van. Lights shone over double oak doors. The Master got out and came around to the passenger door and opened it.

“I fear I shall have to carry you, the ground is gravel and woodchip and dirt. The sleet has turned fully to snow and is starting to settle also.”

“It’s okay. I’m fine.” But when the Doctor swung his bare feet around to stand he shivered uncontrollable. He waved the Master’s solicitous hand away but then was horrified to feel his legs buckle, all that he’d been through physically in the previous 24 hours finally getting to him.

“I’ve got you. I have you,” the Master reassured, lifting him gently up.

“You are not carrying me over your threshold,” the Doctor moaned.

“It seems rather if I am Doctor,” the Master snorted.

“It means nothing!”

“Naturally.” But the Master laughed.

Once inside the Master put the Doctor down and put his finger to the Doctor’s lips before leading his down through a large entrance lobby, up some stairs, down a corridor where he opened an ordinary looking door that lead to his TARDIS control room.

“This whole house is your TARDIS!” the Doctor said, impressed. “Ooh, that is amazingly good. And your human gang have no idea. Brilliant. You’re so brilliant. Well, you always were. Brilliant. I love it. I love...” he was silenced by the Master’s gloved hand,

“I know since we are so far from each other in our temporal lines we seem to be ignoring the rules of this game we invented and talking of the past on Gallifrey, but please, for my sanity’s sake, don’t; don’t say that aloud. I will not tolerate it. I do not want to know what happens between us in the future and I do not want false hope to cling to for centuries.”

The Doctor mumbled. The Master removed his hand from the Doctor’s mouth. “Sorry Master,” he said softly and walked away into the interior of the console room. The Master walked past him and headed to an inner door.

“Come.”

*

Once bathed and clean, in a black bathrobe, the Master led the Doctor to his medical bay. He’d not so far left the Doctor alone, as if he still couldn’t bring himself to trust the Doctor in his TARDIS, despite this future Doctor’s quiet acquiescent and almost unbelievable non-threatening behaviour, almost complete obedience!

The Doctor had been silent and the Master had at least the good grace to turn his back while the Doctor washed his incredibly bruised and battered body. He was beginning to worry about the increasing blank look in the Doctor’s eyes. He had no idea what to do. It was not his place to do anything. Fortunately the full body scan revealed no internal injuries at least, even if it revealed other facts. The bruising would heal. Without a sound the Doctor sat on the bio bed and held out his wrist, watching mutely as the Master exchanged his black leather gloves for blue plastic surgical ones.

“I don’t want to make accidental contact. You are centuries ahead of me and you are... compromised. I can’t know too much of my future. That way madness lies.”

He waited for the Doctor to tell him he was already mad, but the Doctor remained mute. He sprayed on the local anaesthetic but apart from a slight wince at the coldness of it, there was not a sound uttered.

“Ready?” he asked, picking up the laser scalpel.

The Doctor nodded and looked away.

It was impressive, a small Intel chip, the kind humans of this era loved in their handheld devices, nestling between the two arteries. The Master picked up the tweezers and plucked it out. A couple of moments later he’d taped the small cut and picked up the dermal regenerator to close properly.

“It’s done. You are no longer tagged a whore. You’re safe now.”

“Not until the tattoo is gone. Take it off. Now.”

The Master looked at the Doctor.

“Please Master,” the Doctor added.

“It’ll be uncomfortable. I thought after you had eaten, let the skin repair itself fully.”

“Now!” the Doctor yelled.

The Master didn’t remind the Doctor of his manners this time, he just turned and fetched a laser to remove it immediately. Afterwards he massaged aloe vera cream into the reddening wrist, all the while the Doctor watching him with eyes that burned with... what? Pain, yes. But it was more than that. Anger. Good Doctor, get angry at those apes, the Master thought approvingly. Once the last traces of the tattoo were removed the Doctor sighed almost contentedly.

*

The Master had finally left him alone, in the wardrobe room, and gone to prepare a meal. Half of the Doctor wanted to just get out of the TARDIS and run and run and never look back once he had some clothes, but the other half felt safe here, and didn’t ever want to leave. This Master, evil though he might be, was not mad. Not yet. Not stark staring mad, at least. And he was a Time Lord. ‘More than just a Time Lord, you might say we are the same Time Lord’ he had said once to Jo, was it? Very poetic, no doubt. Two become one, bound by unbreakable cords, two Families joined at the highest end of society. 

However, apparently the Master had even found some closure from those snapped cords. He had always wondered why the Master finally just left Earth and then they never crossed for centuries after that. Not until Gallifrey and the Master has already used up all his regenerations. And he was dangerously unstable then. Madder than a box of cats and far far more dangerous.

The Doctor had made some snide quip about everything being so black, and that seemed to satisfy the Master that he was quite himself. But it was true; nearly all the clothes were black. The Doctor leaned into the folds of a Gallifreyan robe and inhaled sandalwood and smoke. He closed his eyes but snapped them open. Every time he closed his eyes he saw the wall, the corner of the bed, Andre and Kurt, heard his own screams...

“You ARE fine Doctor!” he told himself. “You’re fine. Absolutely fine!”

*

The Master looked up from the dining table as the Doctor made his entrance. He was wearing a black and silver pinstripe suit over a deep purple tee shirt and shirt and purple converses on his feet, a long black coat draped over his shoulders. He’d backcombed his hair up into a carefully controlled mad, messy, series of spikes and found eye make up. He’d debated on bothering, as he first instinct had been to hide his natural good looks. But what was he going to do, wrap up in a bag? If he started changing who he was, they had won. Whether they were the Chinese or his rapists he wasn’t sure.

“Do I look good?” the Doctor asked to the Master’s stares, leaning on the doorframe.

“I said before, you told me I no longer have a right to that opinion.”

“So, yes then,” the Doctor grinned.

“Sit down,” the Master said, standing up from the head of the table and coming around to pull out the chair for the Doctor. As he sat he had a sudden flash of memory of their two eldest daughters home from the Academy rowing while the little one ate banana messily making happy gurgles in her high chair while his husband insisted everyone shut up. He closed his eyes, but that was no good, as the images of room 3 of that brothel were burned into his eyelids. He stared at the table as he sat down and tried to be fine. He was fine.

It looked like the Master had been busy. His mouth started to salivate. He was so hungry and there were so many good things on the table. The Master had also laid it correctly and had baskets of flowers and fruit and purple candles burning steadily.

“What is this, Otherstide?” he quipped.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re hungry. You need sustenance. And you were too thin before you starved yourself by the looks of things.”

“I didn’t starve myself, I’ve just been without food. Not by choice. Ooh, look at those tiny potatoes? And mash. And so many real Gallifreyan foods...”

“Help yourself,” the Master said, smiling, sitting opposite.

The Doctor did so, including stuffing his pockets full of fruit and sweets. He was going to be travelling a long time through Europe and Asia with no flights at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: the Master kills in his usual canon type violent and disturbing ways  
> TW: the Doctor suffers from flashbacks and post-rape trauma


	9. The Embassy Yet Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning below

The Doctor found his berth on the sleeper, the last Express of the night to Brussels from Berlin. It would take six and a half hour hours non-stop. He thanked the Chef de Train and pulled the curtain closed, taking off his coat and lay on the bottom bunk, staring up at the one above. He wasn’t sharing. The Master had brought his ticket. He had wanted him to go to Poland and then pick up a cross border train to Moscow while he knew the fake passport was new and wouldn’t be picked up. In fact he’d been terrifyingly solicitous all evening. The Doctor couldn’t decide if it was horrifying or lovely. Even Koschei had never been so sweet, not in centuries of childhood friendship, student days, and certainly not marriage.

After their meal the Master had indulgently watched the Doctor load up his pockets before he stood, saying, “I suppose it is time Doctor. We have crossed time streams enough. I must get back to my plan and you must recover your TARDIS. I have a passport and both a Eurozone ID card and driving licence along with a ration book and I’ve loaded a money card with a ten thousand credit in Yen, and another two with five thousand in Euros and Roubles each. They should get you through.” He had handed them to him in the dining room, watching the Doctor look, awkwardly holding everything at an arms distance. His passport had him as Dr. John Smith, naturalised Chinese citizen.”

“British refugee who got lucky?” the Doctor asked.

“Indeed. You need to get across China with no problems. Use the ID card only in Europe, unless in a fix, they are not the same.” The Doctor squinted and saw that the Eurozone ID was for a Dr. Jean Faber, French citizen, as was the driving licence and ration book. The Master went on, “The Chinese citizenship should get you across Russia and China with no problems. As will the Yen, it’s the premier currency since the collapse of Sterling and the Dollar.”

“This is wrong, you know?”

“Perhaps. As I said, it will have little bearing on humanity ultimately once they leave this wretched planet and spread to the stars. But I think we have crossed more than time streams, you and I, Doctor.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Are you sure you are in the right universe?”

The Doctor rubbed his hair and shook his head. “No, not really, I’m not at all.”

The Master then led him through his TARDIS to the console room door, where he stopped the Doctor opening the door with a gloved hand on his arm. “Please Doctor, raise your mental shields,” he said, before pinning the Doctor to the door and kissing him passionately and aggressively, pushing him back by the shoulder with one gloved hand, while the other hand pressed down hard on the Doctor’s groin, finally kissing his nose three times before he stood back and released him. While the Doctor stood, breathless and confused, the Master smoothed his hair and beard before he opened the door and stepped out into the corridor of the first floor of the ‘house’, the part of the TARDIS’s chameleon circuit being a nineteenth century German country house. “Thank you for not showing me the future,” the Master called over his shoulder. “If we meet any of my employees follow my lead. I will get my chauffeur to drive you to Berlin Hauptbahnhof.”

They climbed down the stairs and crossed the entrance lobby. The Doctor could hear men chat and the sounds of music but didn’t see anyone until he followed the Doctor into a large kitchen where an African couple were sitting around table drinking bush tea and talking, both in their nightwear and dressing gowns.

“This is my ex husband, he’s in a bit of a crisis. Happy, get dressed, I need you to take him to the Berlin Central Station. I want you to stay with him, escort him onto the Brussels sleeper train, make sure he gets the right one...” the Doctor began to protest about being treated like a child, but the Master held up a gloved hand to silence him. “Juna, can you make him a light packed supper? Thank you.”

Both husband and wife jumped up to do as they were told.

“Zimbabweans,” the Master said. “They know I’m an alien. They’re working for me free of charge, and when I leave, I’ll give them EuroZone ID and money to set up a restaurant. As for getting you on the train, I note you are long-sighted as in your loom body. The hypermetropia seems more pronounced this time. I want you on the right train.”

“You astound me, giving that couple a chance and you called me your ex husband.”

“You are,” the Master replied flatly. “Sometimes a lie is not needed. Two not dead in the Sahara or drowned in the Mediterranean is a mere drop in an ocean of suffering. This makes them loyal and devoted.”

The Master had been... kind. And the man at the ticket barrier and the one on the train had both called him Herr Doctor, not looked at him as if he were scum. He realised how isolating and frightening having the tattoo and chip had been. He sat up and pulled off his shoes and jacket, and curled up under the quilt. He was so tired. He closed his eyes, thinking of happy memories and thoughts, Donna and he shopping on Meterolis Prime, he and Rose partying on Argolis, Yu and he watching the sunrise on the Eye of Orion, anything to block the brothel images out, and he let the train’s gentle sway lull him into a much needed natural sleep.

*

His own screaming awoke him. He opened his eyes to find himself tangled in the quilt on the floor, a babble of concerned voices from the carriage, from the other sleeper births. He stumbled to his feet, wrapping the quilt about him for security and opened the door. Immediately he was suffocated by concerned demands for his well-being.

“Your Pardon, Sirs and Madams,” he said in French, “I had a nightmare, nothing more.”

People muttered, a woman patted his arm, and then all was quiet. He pulled on his jacket and coat and wrapped them around himself, shivering, pulling the quilt back over him. He noticed the bag, the woman called Juna had made him a supper – well, early breakfast he supposed. He opened the bag. Inside were a foil container, a plastic fork and something solid wrapped in foil. He opened the container, it was spicy rice cooked in tomatoes with chicken. Inside the foil was a slice of fruitcake. He ate to calm himself, to take his mind of the dream, and because he needed to keep his strength up. He pulled back the blind, the sun was rising presumably, as there was a pinkish glowing blur among the dark, oppressive, dust, clouds low in the eastern sky.

*

Less than an hour later they pulled into Brussels Central Station and the Doctor was disembarking with the other passengers without any looks of contempt or men pinching his bum. It was bliss. He stood on the outer concourse wondering what to do first and how to get there. He planned to return to Anton’s apartment, he remembered the name of the small square it was on, and the road it joined, but he didn’t know what area it was in, how far out of the city, what tram or bus or metro train he needed to catch. Likewise he had no idea where in the City Centre the Chinese Embassy was, he and Yu had taken a taxi all the way, much less how to get into the back of the underground car park and the ventilation grill, if it was still open, if the staff hadn’t discovered it open and resealed it. What he wouldn’t give for his sonic screwdriver.

He walked for a few minutes, following the flow of people exiting the station. He found himself in an open space, a square, in the early morning grey light, a sunny day the other side of the dust he sensed. There were pigeons and people in a rush and the sounds of traffic. He saw a board; it was a map for tourists. He squinted at it, standing back, trying to locate the ‘you are here’ arrow. Everything was blurry and his vision swam, it was so frustrating. He even checked his impulse to take out his glasses from his pocket.

“Hello?” said a bright female voice, bubbling and English.

The Doctor turned and looked down to see a short woman with huge, beautiful clear brown eyes and pale brown long hair dressed in a simple floral dress covered in a mauve wool coat accessorised with deep purple scarf and gloves. She had thick black tights and flat boots, smart and practical. He felt he should know her, as if the recognition was on the tip of his mind. The minute he thought he did, it slid away like mist.

“Hello,” he said curiously.

“Can I help?”

“What?”

“You look a little lost.”

“I’m not lost. I know where I am and where I’ve got to go! Sort of. Little bit. I’ve... lost my glasses at any rate, I can’t read this map.”

“Where have you got to go to?”

The Doctor looked at her.

“Tell you what, why don’t we go over to that cafe and you can tell me the name of the street and so on and I’ll Google it on my phone. You look like you’d remember everything without having to write it down. I’m Clara by the way.”

The Doctor looked at her.

“I’m not trying to pick you up. I promise. Just being helpful. Me – Clara,” Clara said, pointing to herself, “you...?”

“Doctor. I’m the Doctor.”

“Just the Doctor?”

“Well, yes. Well, no, I have an ID card that says Dr. Jean Faber, if I must. But yeah, just the Doctor.”

“Come on Doctor, I bet you can use some coffee?” She started walking across the square, stopped and spun on her short heels and looked back at the Doctor, who was standing looking confused. “Come on!” she snapped. He looked alarmed, so she walked back to him and took his hand. “I’m being a friend Doctor. Let’s get coffee and work out how to get to where you need to be.”

“H’m?”

“Coffee. Maps. Help.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I do actually work as a tourist guide. You just looked a little lost and in need of help. No strings.”

“Tea. I’d prefer tea.”

“Okay. Come then.”

Once in the cafe Clara ordered herself a large cafe au lait and a pot of tea ‘English style’ and found them a table in the window.

“You seem like you’ve been hurt Doctor,” she said.

The Doctor stared at her.

“Your eyes, so young and afraid.”

“I’m not young, far older than I look.”

“I’m sure of that, but something has brought out deep rooted vulnerability.”

“It’d none of your business. I don’t know you... Do I?”

“I’d like to help.”

“I don’t think anyone can. Not this. It will take time.”

“Trauma usually does. Talking helps.” Clara stretched across the table and squeezed his hands. He flinched and pulled back, but not before temporal and artron energy fizzled from the touch. Time swam about her, backwards, forwards, and sideways. If he looked at her too long he got vertigo. He stared blankly, confused, while she brightly changed the subject. “But,” she said, pulling her phone from her pocket, “address?”

He told her Anton’s address and she talked him through the Metro station, the bus, and the route from the bus stop. He then told her he needed to be at the back of the Chinese Embassy, in the underground car park. She looked at him curiously.

“It’s where a few of my misplaced items are,” he said, deciding to trust her so far, “my glasses, for one, other belongings, the locations of my space-time vessel and my boyfriend, for instance,” he watched her and when she didn’t bat an eyelid, he added softly, “my honour...”

She reached across the table and touched his elbow, “You can’t lose your honour in an Embassy,” she said.

“You can if you’re raped,” the Doctor said, not meaning to, looking down, alarmed as the words tumbled out without his consent.

“That’s not losing honour, that’s being hurt. I think you need some cake. Those pink ones look lovely. More tea too?”

“I think I ought to go,” the Doctor said, stumbling to his feet.

“Sit down, take your breath, and wait for the tea and cake. The Embassy will have to wait for night time anyway, won’t it?”

“Are you a companion? In my future?” the Doctor asked when she returned from placing the order.

“No, not quite. Do you need me to help you get in?”

The Doctor shook his head. “Too dangerous.”

“Okay. A hug then?”

The Doctor sat back and pulled his coat around himself and hugged himself, shaking his head.

“Fine. You remember all I’ve told you?”

The Doctor nodded.

“Do you need anymore information while I’m here with my phone?”

“How do I get to Beijing by train?”

“Oh, that’s quite straightforward, go from Paris.”

The Doctor flinched, thinking of how unhappy he’d been in Paris, treated as a prostitute, and he began to shake. Clara touched his hand lightly,

“It’s okay. You can go via Berlin. Then Warsaw. Then Moscow. Then pick up the Trans-Siberian Express. It’ll take you about 10-12 days.”

“Thank you. Clara. Will I see you? In my future perhaps?”

Clara smiled softly. “I’ll leave you to your cake and tea.” She stood up and put her hand to his cheek. Again the fizzle of multi-dimensional, temporal, and artron, energy. “Take care of yourself.” With that, she left, walking out of the cafe and across the square, disappearing among the crowds as if she’d never been there.

*

The Doctor spent a few hours wandering around the city, sightseeing and window-shopping. He was so used to having his TARDIS and access the best and the fastest, he wasn’t used to living like a normal person, but he realised he needed to make plans. Even if he got in and out of the Embassy with the location of Yu and the TARDIS and his belongings, he had two to three days on trains to Moscow, then a week to Beijing and then however long it took him to get to wherever the TARDIS and Yu were being held, that was supposing they were in the same place. China was a huge country. So he bought himself a holdall, some changes of tops and underwear and some basic toiletries, along with teabags, powdered milk, and biscuits and chocolate. He surprised himself by ending up in a toyshop and looking at soft toys, feeling like he wanted something to cling to through the flashbacks and nightmares to that brothel. He chose a fluffy white rabbit with long, floppy ears. He called it Fizzallundra, Fizzy for short. He also bought a yoyo and a working toy compass.

He ate late in the afternoon, in a traditional bistro, enjoying some excellent food, enjoying more the fact that no man felt it perfectly acceptable to demand sex, inquire his price, or touch him without his permission. He then got on a commuter train out of the city to Anton’s suburb.

*

He waited two hours for Anton to come home, but he never did. When it was dark and late and few people were about, the Doctor slipped into the communal gardens in the gap between the two apartment blocks and, finding a large bush in the far corner, buried his holdall with his newly acquired belongings and the papers and money cards the Master had given him with a shovel the gardener had left behind. The Chinese had had enough of his belongings already, and if they caught him he would eventually escape and make his way back here. Perhaps then Anton would be here. He hoped Anton was fine, unscathed by their adventure together. 

He then began his walk back to the bus stop to begin his journey to the Embassy.

*

The grill was back in place, but for all the Doctor knew, Anton had merely placed it without screwing it in place. He tried to remember if he had replaced the other end. Anton had told him to, hadn’t he? But he had had his mind of other things, like fear and the new meaning of the word bitch and finding the location of the TARDIS and he was sometimes a Doctor of very little brain, especially when distracted and afraid and with no link to the TARDIS. He was beginning to suspect she was the brave one, he felt such fear without her as a constant pressure at the back of his mind. The Master’s TARDIS was still translating, but he would be gone in another two days. Then it was back to the hard way, and he had no German, Polish, or Russian, to speak of.

He cast around for a way back up into the ventilation shaft and saw a pile of crates by the back delivery entrance to the kitchen. He dragged two over and stacked them and hauled himself precariously up. The grill was loose and he dropped it, wincing at the noise it made as it clattered to the ground. Glancing nervously about the car park, he wriggled into the shaft and began pulling himself through to the utility room the other end.

The other end was still loose too and he pushed it, but this time it landed noisily onto the washer, with no wet laundry to cushion its fall. He followed, landing on his hands and flipping himself sideways to land on his feet. As he did so the light snapped on and two soldiers were stood in the door.

He didn’t mince his words as he raised his hands mouthing, “Oh fuck!”

*

“Back so soon. This was unexpected Doctor,” the same man, in the same office, greeted the Doctor as he was marched in. “Still, no matter, it served its purpose. Perhaps. Firstly, I have an apology. I investigated your allegation last time you were here.”

“What allegation?”

“Your injuries. We had no intention of hurting you. The men involved have been reprimanded. It seems, drugged as you were, you still attempted to escape while being escorted to the vehicle, and fell down three flights of stairs. They continued with their orders to take you to the New Jungle without getting you checked out. I apologise.”

“I wish I could accept you apology but you’ve stolen my belongings and my ship and marked me a prostitute. Are you trying to break me down into giving up the TARDIS’s secrets?”

The man stood and nodded to the officer stood behind the Doctor, before asking, “Is it working? Seems your Mandarin is excellent today. I suspected it was another Time Lord who freed you from Butterflies. Where is he?”

“I have no idea.” The Doctor looked sideways as a soldier moved next to him, balling his fists. “Really. On Earth, obviously, as his TARDIS is translating. But other than that... how are you blocking mine from me?”

The Doctor’s capturer smiled. “That is not for you to know.” He sat on his desk. “Sit down Doctor. Please. You look quite faint.”

The Doctor shook his head but the soldier grabbed him and forced him down into the chair, bruising his shoulder, still bruised from Kurt and Andre’s ministrations. The Doctor yelped in pain, high-pitched and alarmed. His interrogator smiled.

“Where is this other TARDIS?”

“I have no idea. Do you think he’d let me anywhere near his TARDIS? It’s quite astounding it will translate for me!”

“So it was the Master?”

“He called himself Herr Meister, it couldn’t have been rocket science to work that out. Talking of which, what have you done with Commander Chan Yu?”

“He’s under arrest, naturally.”

“What for? He wanted nothing but to come back home and serve you!”

“For unnatural acts.”

“What?”

“With you.”

“What?”

“Not only homosexuality, but unnatural acts and contamination of foreign and alien ideas.”

“What? What are you going to do him?”

“As soon as he’s shared all he’s seen with you, normal punishments, of course. Death. His organs will be harvested. All routine. A traitor to his people and not even a real man. A failure too, a waste of a programme.”

The Doctor was horrified, terrified for Yu, tried to argue the best way to keep him alive. “No, that’s not true, his ideas are sound, would have worked to, if that wormhole hadn’t opened...”

“He didn’t create it?”

“No, it was natural. I think. I didn’t recognise it, but... gravity bounce and orbital slingshot wouldn’t have created it, just more than doubled the ships speed!”

“Thank you Doctor.” He nodded behind the Doctor to someone he couldn’t see. “Chinese astronauts and scientists, real men this time, will benefit from Chan’s research.”

“You can’t dismiss him, you need him! He’s a genius!” the Doctor yelled, frightened. “You can’t kill him just because... just because...”

“Because what Doctor? Because he was your lover?”

“Yes,” the Doctor lowered his gaze, dipping his head.

“Interesting. Thank you for the conformation. Chan denies you.”

The Doctor hung his head, telling himself he couldn’t be hurt by Yu’s denial, of course Yu would deny it, if that was what awaited him. He felt so cold with fear for Yu. He may have just made it worse for him when he had tried to make it better. He almost wished Yu had betrayed him, because then he would be safe. Even if he escaped right now, he was at least two weeks from finding him, would he even still be alive? The Doctor felt such despair and powerlessness.

The officer who had left returned with a wad of cotton. The Doctor glanced nervously, before sighing and holding out his wrist, “Don’t bother, here’s my wrist.”

The man shook his head slightly, looking to the officer, “You should be grateful,” he said to the Doctor, “that we provide you with a means of supporting yourself.”

“What? What!” the Doctor stood, but was pushed back down. “I’m a scientist and a medical Doctor. There are plenty of things I could be doing!”

“Tell that to the Syrian and British scientists and doctors in the camps. Tell that to the Europeans; tell them to let dangerous foreigners or refugees work in such areas. No, to them you’re just another unwanted migrant. You can work for China, but for that you’ll need to give us your knowledge of faster than light travel, terra forming, inertial dampeners, and gravity nets. And I don’t think you’re ready to do that, are you Doctor?” He smiled and reached over to the Doctor and touched his face, stroking it creepily, as if he were a particularly cute but annoying animal. “No, until you want to come to us willingly, we give you the only means open to you in this barbarous continent.” He nodded again to the man behind him. “Knock him out now.”

“Wait! Please wait!” the Doctor yelled, panicked, standing again, struggling as he felt the pressure on his painful shoulders. “I understand why you want my technology, but why all my belongings? My coat? My clothes?”

The interrogator glanced at the Doctor, his eyes raking over him sitting back in the chair. “Seems you have found some very similar ones. Very fetching, black, very... slimming. Not that you need help there. We have xeno psychologists and anthropologists that might find your belongings fascinating.”

“My glasses,” the Doctor said hurriedly, panicked and afraid. “Please. Whatever you do, wherever you dump me, even back in that place, please... please. If I have to be stuck on Earth as a prostitute, can’t I be allowed to read, at least... please. My glasses...” 

But the chloroform yet again silenced the Doctor.

*

“What’s that?” the Doctor had yelped as the Master pushed a hypospray into his neck.

“It will inhibit those human anaesthetics and sedatives they keep pumping into your system.”

“Oh?”...

...Oh! The Doctor opened two heavy eyes. He smelt a mixture of antiseptic and cleaning products and rubber, along with ink. A man was sitting next to the bed he was on, holding his wrist, a tattooing needle poised in his other hand, while another man in a white coat was standing over him, and he felt cold over his abdomen, something was being pressed on his belly and moved... they were scanning him, an ultra sound scan... why?

“He’s awake!” the man examining him said, and he felt someone pick up his hand and a sting of a needle...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: homophobic language


	10. Interlude  – the Doctor dreams and remembers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor, more aware than before, as the Chinese move him, lucid dreams and remembers how he met his companion, Yu, before waking in the rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally the first prologue, altered a little – I hope it works fine here!

The faces of the Chinese medical and military staff blurred as whatever they had put into the needle took its effect, and instead he dreamt Donna and Ace were both staring down at his, then Yu and a bright red skinned alien both appeared beside the two women, and with Ace, the two men pulled Donna away...

Donna...

What are you doing, spaceman?

No, no! No Doctor! Don’t...

Donna! He left Donna with her family and walked into the TARDIS, set the coordinates at random and walked out the other door and just walked and walked, the infinite interior changing and shifting, past endless doors...

It was Morse code that the TARDIS picked up, dot dot dot, dash dash dash, dot dot dot. Repeating endlessly,

The Doctor had dozed, curled up in a chair in a random room. He’d walked and walked after he had said goodbye to Donna. She was right, of course; he shouldn’t be alone. But he had seen what he could do to people.

He had walked for hours, days even, a form of meditative funk, remembering companions of the past, Barbara and Ian, Liz, Polly and Ben, dear old Harry... people he surely hadn’t damaged...? People he was proud of, so proud of, Nyssa, Ace, and Jo. Dear, dear Jo. Fantastic, brilliant Jo!

Dot dot dot, dash dash dash, dot dot dot...

He felt it in his mind before he heard it, along with the gentlest of telepathic of caresses from the TARDIS, ‘enough wallowing’...

He opened his eyes and saw white roundels; this far in the TARDIS the old interior still existed. He climbed out of the chair stiffly and opened the door in front of him that hadn’t been there when he’d sat down.

“Brilliant! I loved the old spare console room. Not seen you for centuries, you lovely wooden thing you!”

He sounded hollow, to himself.

Now he could hear the SOS quite plainly. He dashed over to the oak and brass console and examined the readouts.

“Ooh, now that’s not right, is it? Way out on the Madrillion cluster on the furthest reaches of the Andromeda galaxy? How does a human ship get there? Oh, I see, an unstable wormhole, opened up above the moon some time ago, flipping its openings... someone needs a ride home!”

 

*

 

The TARDIS materialized half a mile from the module, a Chinese space capsule from the early to mid twenty-first century. What the hell was it doing here? It was half buried in the soft earth, red and purple brambles and silver branches pulled over it. The similarity to the flora of Gallifrey had felt like a pain of heavy stones where his hearts should be ever since he’d stepped out of the exterior police box door. The Doctor pulled them apart and clambered inside.

The first thing that struck him was that someone was living there, silver space blankets and hand woven patterned blankets were made into a bed at the back, parts had been cannibalised to make furniture and a stove. The smashed console had one flickering light, a radio transmission on repeat. The SOS signal he’d picked up.

“Ooh, you are a long way from home... Commander Chan?” the Doctor asked, spotting a space suit, the soft type over coverall used by humans for space stations and ships alike since the end of the twentieth century. The owner’s name was written on the breast pocket in Mandarin. “A long long way from home, lost in time as well as space.”

He whipped out his sonic screwdriver and performed a routine scan for temporal displacement. “Ah, definitely wormhole chronotron particles.” He changed the frequency. “And human DNA, definitely. So, Commander Chan, where are you?”

Judging by the local level 2/3 merchandise scattered among the twenty-first human belongings and technology, he had made himself at home. Humans! Such survivors!

The Doctor clambered out of the module and set off at a brisk pace along the well-trodden path. He soon came to a track way and made his way along it. The suns were high in the sky; the first, the large red one just declining from its meridian, the second, smaller white star just about to rise to it. It was growing hot. The Doctor removed his pinstripe jacket and rolled up his sleeves, undoing his tie and top button. He wished he had some water. He’d been walking, unfed and watered, in his funk, for far too long before he came out.

*

The Doctor meant to search all day. The local culture may have been a low-tech civilization, but he should have known by now never to make assumptions, as it was no stranger to interstellar travel and alien species. The locals were mostly humanoid, with antennas above their foreheads, red of skin and with thick hair in deep reds, purples, and blacks, mostly worn long and dreaded or plaited. Some gave him a precursory second glance, but he saw many, many, other species among the locals in the market – many different types and shapes and colours. Most were in family groups or gatherings of young adults in mostly single sex groups. Wherever he was, it was obviously a tourist destination for this quadrant of the Andromeda galaxy.

The first thing he had done was get himself a large glass of water and a pot of the local tea, a spicy, fruity, blend sweetened with the local honey. His waiter was happy to explain about the mountain spring flowers that fed the bees and how respect and the asking of the bees was a local tradition. The Doctor asked if the waiter had seen another traveller that looked like him.

“M’m, not exactly. Not really. Can’t say so. You look like the Peacekeepers of legend, perhaps a bit like those show people the Lurmans, apart from that you are far too subdued in your dress, as well as the obnoxious Salastopians, but they are banned.”

“Yes, well, they are quite an greedy and venal race, and would probably want to exploit what you have here. At least, those who’ve I met are. I’m the Doctor, but the way, Al’nama’du. How do you know I’m not?” Al’nama’du had introduced himself when he had come to take the Doctor’s order.

“Well met Doctor. Our gifts extend beyond and within. I can see your two hearts. I’ve not met a species with two hearts before? How deeply you must feel!”

“Ooh, I’m quite unique,” the Doctor quipped, failing to hide his grief and guilt from the slight telepathy of Al’nama’du, and presumably all his kind. It must be what made them so good at serving the happy tourists. Although the Doctor made a note to watch his thoughts and feelings a bit better for the rest of his visit.

“I share your sadness.” The waiter made a pyramid with his long fingers then touched the Doctor’s nose with the point of his splayed index finger.

“Waiter!” someone called from another table, a furry species, quite dog-like.

“Forgive me.”

Al’nama’du was rushed of his feet for a long while, although he brought the Doctor more tea and a lime coloured cheesecake that tasted of coconut and apple blossom ‘on the house’.

It was a good place to sit. The tourists and locals went past, as did scholars and monks, in purple gowns and orange and saffron robes. The place was steeped in ancient traditions and beliefs, old architecture and beautiful surrounding countryside with safe fauna and breath-taking flora and geology. A veritable tourist destination. Commander Chan had obviously crashed on his feet, as it were.

He suspected that the free tea and cake was less about any sense of his being ‘the last of his kind’ and far more about being cute. Al’nama’du gave him looks of speculative lust and wistful thinking in equal measure with his large round purple eyes.

Now, often the Doctor was one to present as asexual, or above such things, and Gallifreyans, as a telepathic species, preferred the committed and the bonded, as a rule, but the Doctor had been a renegade exile for a long while before the Time War and alone ever since... 

If the Doctor didn’t have a lost human to find, if he wasn’t sure he would be using Al’nama’du as a painkiller and tranquillizer for the dreadful things he’d done to his companions, the loss of whom Donna had been, who she should be...

People who forget...

Companions who forget...

Jamie!

He hurt so much right now.

“Hey Doctor. Well met. My shift just ended. Let me show you the spots, let’s look for another of yours.”

The Doctor looked up with deep eyes through his eyelashes before scrubbing at his stubble across his face and smiling a lazy beam.

Commander Chan had obviously been surviving sometime alone already; one more night wouldn’t hurt. And the Cre Magtona people were obviously quite happy with personal xeno interaction with their visitors.

“Why not?”

*

Seventeen hours later the Doctor awoke in a bed of the brightly patterned blankets, a wall hanging in similar design on the wall above his head. His head ached, his mouth was dry, and he felt sore all over. The local wine had a kick like a mule, and although a Time Lord can chose whether to let alcohol affect him, the Doctor had chosen. Oh boy, had he chosen. Oh dear!

He lay back and concentrated on cranking his kidneys and liver into overdrive, eliminating remaining toxins. He rolled over and found a notelet in the shape of a blue five petaled flower, a small crushed real delicate blue flower on top. It looked similar to flax on Earth, apart from the red stem and leaves, the sign of love and lust on this planet. He read the note,

“Well met indeed Doctor my sweet flower. I regret leaving you. I must work and my husband returns this evening from his trade visit. Having thought about it, Wu the Juggler looks similar to you. No one knows what he is. You’ll find him under the Bridge of Sorrows, by the Dome of Books, or on the Bridge of the Twin Rivers, near the punt hire booth, entertaining the tourists. If he is not who you seek, he may be able to help. Travel Well Doctor. In peace and love, Na’ma.”

*

The Doctor crossed the Bridge of Twin Rivers first, as that was his way back to the centre from Al’nama’du’s apartment. The suns shone on dappled water, and pink willows dipped down into the edges as punts went past, gently lapping the water. On the other side were a crowd of aliens of many kinds, all oohing and aahing in front of a Scholar’s Tower. He elbowed his way to the front and saw...

A human. A compact, muscled, yellow skinned human, naked but for the brightly coloured linen baggy trousers and a necklace of stone beads. He was juggling fire sticks, six of them, spinning and catching and feinting dropping, only to catch them. He had the skills that could only have come from being trained from the age of three at one of the People’s China’s Circus Schools. How did he get onto the Space Program, the Doctor wondered idly, as more primitive parts of his mind, awakened by Al’nama’du, took in the six pack, pecs, and abs, shining and glistening with sweat and lit by the flickering fire sticks.

The Commander must have sensed the speculative, scrutinising look, or just by mere coincidence, he glanced in the Doctor’s direction. Either way, the shock of seeing a human, or what looked human, caused him to falter, and he missed a swap and a stick hit the floor, causing some of the dog-people’s puppies to squeal and clutch their mother’s dress. The father stamped on the flame to put it out. Other viewers began to mutter; some drifting away, other’s staying to watch the curious inter-change, only understanding it all by the grace and kindness of the TARDIS.

“Commander Chan I take it? I got your signal.”

“Are you human...? How?” he stumbled out in a slow, accented, version of the local language.

“Well, not exactly human. In fact, no, not at all. But some of my best friends have been human.”

Chan Yu looked at the Doctor with an intense study. The Doctor was surprised to grow pink across the cheeks. Damn his encounter with Al’nama’du, however pleasant, stirring up all these base hormones...

“Who are you?” Chan asked now in English.

“I’m the Doctor.”

“I know you. That is, UNIT files are standard reading for anyone on the Space Programme. Can you get me home?”

While they spoke, Chan extinguished his fire sticks and put them in a purple cotton draw string back, along with juggling balls and clubs and small bean bags, he had used to teach children, and pull on his white shirt and black waistcoat, then his boots. He looked very much the hippie street entertainer from many Western cities in Europe – particularly Britain – and California, but not very Chinese. His face though, told a different story, with sculptured high cheekbones and almond shaped dark brown eyes under a blue-black fringe of hair.

“I am at your service,” the Doctor replied in Mandarin, bowing deeply.

Chan laughed deeply and put his hand on the Doctor’s shoulder. “Thank fuck for that!” he said happily in his own dialect.

*

In his first incarnation, in his grumbling, aging loom body, when he first travelled, he really had no idea. He had practically kidnapped dear Barbara and Chatterton in a panic attack, frightened for his granddaughter. In his fifth, the TARDIS was still a little bit of a mystery, as his regeneration had seemed to have wiped a lot of what he had been taught by Romana – not that he would ever give her the satisfaction that watching her had taught him more than his stumbling about over the console had taught him in several centuries. He had tried so hard to get Tegan home, and had failed time and time again, although he was often close, within a few parsecs or centuries. Turlough, of course, he had persuaded by various arts, to drop his wish to go home. When he’d left, it had been to care for his brother. He hoped. He had so many regrets there.

Companions after that came and went as they chose. He could pilot the TARDIS as he wished.

However, there was what Koschei far back at the Academy had once called Theta Sigma’s Rule One – he lied. It took Commander Chan Yu months to realise it wasn’t that the TARDIS wasn’t failing or the Doctor didn’t know what he was doing, but that the Doctor had fished out the old randomiser he and Romana had once been forced to use. By that time the Doctor was using the same gentle persuasion as with Turlough. And Chan Yu was, he had thought, equally happy.

After all, Donna was right, he should not be alone. He couldn’t trust himself alone. He needed someone with him. And Yu came with the added bonus of making him feel amazing, of drowning him in bodily sensations until he forgot himself, forgot all he had done.

But being lied to is not something a lot of humans easily forgive. Apparently, even when they are having fun in a physical relationship. Especially when they thought they were having fun in a physical relationship.

“Take me home Doctor. Now!”

“But... but... we...”

“It’s been great, yeah. But I have a duty. I need to get home. My flight was an experiment. I have to report my findings. I have a responsibility. I have parents who will be worried! I have a fiancée!”

“What? You have a what?” he was so shocked his voiced rose almost as high as it could in his fifth persona. The Doctor knew full well the cultural differences between the Cre Magtona and human Chinese morality.

They rowed on and off for 48 hours. Doors were slammed. Voices rose. Finally Yu slapped the Doctor. Not punched. Not hit. Slapped. The Doctor knew enough about human cultures and gender differences and roles to silently turn, with dignity, and set the controls to take Chan Yu home. He then sulked in the Cloisters until they dematerialised.

Sulked and cried and hugged his knees and rocked.

Destroyer of Worlds. The Oncoming Storm. Time’s Champion. Reduced to a pathetic puddle by a slap from a boyfriend.

But it was ever thus, he thought, his face wet with tears. He was getting wetter by the second.

He woke up in the rain, to a vile smell of old garbage, soaked through to the skin!


	11. Strasbourg with Potential Governments in Exile

The rain splattered on his face but it took a few moments to register his face was growing wet, he had thought he was dreaming. The Doctor sat up like a bolt of electricity had been shot through him. They had dumped him on the streets again. He didn’t know where, but he was still in the suit and coat he’d got from the Master’s TARDIS and he wasn’t in that or any other brothel. Clothes were a distinct advantage, even the coat. Also, he wasn’t sure... the Doctor put his hand to his face.

“My glasses!” he cried joyfully, before taking them off, folding them closed and putting them in his jacket pocket.

There also seemed to be something in another pocket. He pulled it out – a book.

“Fifty Shades of Grey,” he read curiously, putting his glasses back on, then turned it over and read the summary on the back. Shocked, he threw it away from him. He returned his glasses to the safety of his pocket.

He squinted up through the rain and dust clouds. Almost midday, perhaps, but where? A few people had scurried past like proverbial Pharisees and Sadducees, looking down or away or on their phones, pretending he wasn’t there. He tried asking a few people for help, but he was ignored with studious effort. He realised everyone so far had had brown skin, many of the women in the style of scarf that the kind Ayesha had worn when he first woke up dumped. Was he back in the New Jungle then?

He doubted it. There was a distinct lack of the smell of the sea and the sound of seabirds. He could hear starlings gather somewhere and, looking up at the grey-purple sky he could see a lone crane wheel about. He also saw crumbling tower blocks. He was on some municipal estate. But where? Given that they had already left him in Calais and Berlin, anywhere in Europe, he supposed.

He was lying in the dirt in front of a collection of communal refuge bins. It stank. So did he. He gave himself a quick inventory, but appeared to be completely unharmed this time. He stumbled to his feet and looked about him. Everywhere where once he supposed there had been communal gardens, children’s play areas, and car parks, were homes made of shipping containers with tents in-between the blocks of container homes. He was obviously in another refugee area.

The first white person the Doctor had noticed walked past, an old man, muttering to himself as he hugged himself. He was tall and aging, handsome once, with short dark hair going white, with wild blue eyes. The Doctor smiled and said hello. The man looked back, shocked, then smiled and walked back.

“Why, hello? I’ve not seen you before. I see by your tattoo you’re for rent. You shouldn’t be here you know. Not in the Secure Compound. How did you get through? Your client should have escorted you off site.”

The Doctor put his right hand immediately over his left wrist and took a step back, “Oh. I’m not a... that is, someone put this on me against my will...”

The man looked at the Doctor. “How much? These things mattered once, could destroy a career. What does it matter now? Got out, that’s the main thing. Handsome boy, bet you cost a lot, do you? I never got my money out. I don’t know how they did. Boy like you destroyed my career once you know. I could have been Prime Minister you know?” He began to laugh hysterically. The Doctor took a step back, sensing the ferocity of the fractures in the man’s fragile mind. Shell shock. PTSD. Something the Doctor could recognise all too well. “I’d have purged the bastard Eurosceptics out of my Party before the rot set in!” He hugged himself again and laughed harder. “Stupid, stupid, stupid! All gone decades ago for a boy like you.” With that, the man walked away, before the Doctor could find out anything at all.

Confused, the Doctor sat back down on the wet ground again. He needed more data. He didn’t fancy walking around in circles. All he knew was he was among refugees, some British, but Syrians, Iraqis, and Afghans too, judging by the majority of faces, in something that was called ‘the Secure Compound’ and going by the cold and the air, he was inland and further north-east than the New Jungle.

A group of men in Middle Eastern dress walked past and looked at him with disgust. One spat on the floor in front of him. More people walked past, mostly Asian and Middle Eastern in appearance, even if they had once been British born citizens. Most ignored him while a few insulted him. Two white women came up to him, late middle aged, smart but worn and patched clothes, one woman had very short hair in a pixie cut, the other a blonde bob.

“Are you alright? Have you lost your way out?”

“I’m... not sure where I am.”

“You’re in front of the main block, the Diplomats Block. You need to go around it to the square and cross past the other two blocks to the gate.”

The other woman touched his arm, above the tattoo, “Your client really should have signed you in and escorted you off.”

“Crashed out did he? You should have waited for him to wake.”

“The Tory old goat!” the other one laughed. “Good job we try to embody tolerance and acceptance here. Watch out for the Iraqis and Syrians.”

“We’ll be late for the meeting Caroline, come on.”

“Bye. Good luck. Fat lot it’ll do Natalie. All hot air, pretence, and mansplaning.”

The Doctor watched them walk away, still not having a clue to where he was. He felt frozen. By his estimate, he had half a day of the Master’s TARDIS translation before he left Earth.

They walked off towards the entrance of the tower block. Several others appeared to be heading that way. A meeting. Perhaps he should go? Being at the centre of things was more his forte. He might be able to see where time went wrong. If it had? If it wasn’t in the wrong universe?

The Doctor hated being paralysed by indecision. He knew what he had to do, get back to Brussels, get his IDs, money cards, and clothes, and the rabbit, and then get to Beijing as soon as possible. It looked like he would have to prostitute himself or walk. Maybe he was still in Brussels. That would make it easier. The threats to Yu indicated he didn’t have long left.

*

Yu was back in the same interrogation room, his head being held as he was forced to watch the video of the Doctor they had showed him before. He wasn’t sure if he hadn’t preferred the physical violence. He tried not to look at the Doctor’s drugged, bewildered, frightened, face or what the two men were doing to his body, and so noticed the tattoo. He’d read about that tattoo when the new EuroCombine had introduced it throughout the EuroZone in an attempt to control prostitution and prevent human trafficking.

What were they doing to him?

“Why do you insist on being faithful to the alien tart?” the man shouted in his face.

“I’m not. I crashed on the planet. I slowly learned the language. I juggled for tourists. The Doctor found me and brought me home. He got it wrong and we landed in Paris not Beijing. The planet was primitive technologically. I have no idea how the Doctor’s TARDIS works. But I don’t think he is choosing to have that done to him. He’s a Time Lord. Do you know what that even means?”

“Do you?”

“He’s fire and ice and rage. He’s like night, and the storm and the heart of the sun. He’s ancient and forever. He burns in the centre of time, and he can see the turn of the universe. He has power beyond your imagination. He is The On Coming Storm. Destroyer of Worlds. That’s the Dalek names for him! I know from the files you know who I’m talking about! You will pay for treating him like that. And you have no idea when or how, but you will!”

“But you weren’t his companion?”

“How many times!” Yu shouted. “No!”

His interrogator smiled and pulled his phone from his pocket and played, 

“You can’t dismiss him, you need him! He’s a genius!” the Doctor yelled, sounding frightened. “You can’t kill him just because... just because...”

“Because what Doctor? Because he was your lover?”

“Yes,” the Doctor said so sadly.

“Interesting. Thank you for the conformation. Chan denies you.”

Yu hung his head. “Shit,” he mumbled. He was dead.

“He doesn’t seem very powerful to my colleagues in the EuroZone. Pathetic more like. He will break and come to us and give us everything we want. Which begs the question, Chan, do we keep you alive or not?”

“Bait!” Chan said quickly. “If you read the files, he is better manipulated by threatening companions, not him.”

The interrogator nodded to the screen, frozen with the Doctor lying on his back among red satin sheets, a large African man holding his legs high and fucking him from standing on the edge of the bed. “We’ve found a new foolproof way of breaking him.”

Yu turned his head and vomited onto the floor.

*

“Hello. Are you okay?” An elderly Asian man walked up to the Doctor. He was once powerfully built and looked like he had recently lost a lot of weight from being quite padded for most of his life. He had greying hair and a white beard. A young woman in a pink hijab and jeans who held onto his arm accompanied him.

“No,” the Doctor mumbled, tracing his fingers in the wet pumice dust. “I’ve been spat at and called more homophobic names than I ever knew existed on Earth. I don’t know where I am or how to get back to Brussels. I was drugged and dumped here and no one will listen. They all assume someone brought me into this camp as a prostitute. And I’m not. You must believe me. I’m not! They put this in against my will!”

“I’m Nazir Ahmed. This is my granddaughter Tasneem. Are you hungry?”

“I’m the Doctor. And yes I am.”

Nazir held out a hand. “Come to our flat and we’ll feed you, get you a little drier and cleaner, and work out how to help you.”

“You are the first person to offer help. A couple of people stopped to be a little nicer, but no one... what I mean, is, thank you.”

It wasn’t a far walk, along the path that ran parallel to the tall tower blocks, then across a square that once would have been gardens but now was filled with three stories of containers with ladders up to the second two stories, making more make-shift homes. Flags hung from some of them, Iraqi, Syrian, Iranian, Yemeni, Turkish, Icelandic, and British, some Union and some the crosses of St George, St Andrew, and St Piran, along with the Red Dragon of Wales, fluttering in the breeze, dirty from pumice and dust and dirt, sad little statements of lost homes.

The other side of the once gardens or square was another four set of sixties tower blocks, and Ahmed lead them into a flat on the ground floor. Inside was an open plan living room and dining area, with doors leading off to the kitchen and to a hallway for the bedrooms and bathroom.

An elderly woman sat on the battered sofa, about the same age as Nazir, dressed in a grey satin shalwar kameez and thick red cardigan. She hurriedly pulled her silver dupatta over her hair and stood up.

“Nazir?” she questioned, looking suspiciously at the Doctor, her intelligent, shrewd eyes looking at the tattoo. The Doctor tugged his sleeve down and mouthed ‘sorry, I’m not...’

“Beloved,” Nazir said in Punjabi, “this is the Doctor. The Doctor. You remember?”

“I remember a tall man, yes, but older, with snow white hair and a beaky nose. He dressed in velvet and frills. Imposing. This is a tart in an expensive but dirty suit.”

“Tasneem, darling girl, make us some tea please.”

“Sure,” the child replied in English, rolling her eyes and stomping off.

“You knew he was an alien,” Nazir said as a statement to his wife, while the Doctor looked on, eyes wide with confusion, rubbing the back of his head to try to help him remember this couple from his third incarnation.

“I guessed, I wasn’t supposed to know,” she replied.

Nazir smiled fondly at his wife, then turned to the Doctor, standing stock still in the doorway, still trying, and failing, to remember meeting these people and feeling embarrassed both by the tattoo and the smell of garbage coming off his suit. 

“Please Doctor, take a seat,” Nazir said, gesturing to the sofa. “Are you hungry?” he asked.

“Do I know you?” the Doctor demanded, still confused.

“You travel in time, so perhaps not, as I don’t recognise your regeneration. We met in Yorkshire a long time ago, in the seventies. Or was it the eighties? My memory’s not what it once was. Following the Silurian attempt to spread their infection. You were with the Brigadier.”

The Doctor shook his head, “I’m sorry...”

“You had a yellow car from the 1900s, you called her Bessie.”

The Doctor smiled, despite himself, “Bessie!”

Tasneem returned with a tray of sweet, hot spicy chai. Mrs Ahmed barked an order at her, telling her to make some food for their guests. She looked at the Doctor curiously, then sighed and rolled her eyes again, and stomped off yet again. Mrs Ahmed sat down painfully, wincing, next to the Doctor on the sofa. It looked as if arthritis was giving her a lot of pain in her hips and knees. She bent forward to pour the tea, but the Doctor moved faster,

“Please, let me Begum...?”

“Saki, although once I was the Lady Baroness Saki Ahmed of Rotherham, but it’s meaningless now, that bitch abolished the House of Lords for daring to stand up for human rights! You do know that, right? It’s why you are here?”

“Saki, beloved...”

The Doctor looked from elderly wife to her husband, who had once been a Baron, a Peer of the Realm. Both were as frail as each other. He had gathered he was in a ‘secure compound’, a place for refugees of high status. “I’ve gathered that Britain is a fascist state, and believe me, that isn’t supposed to happen. But I haven’t come here to put time on track, although I am gathering clues and when I find where there is a divergence, I promise – I utterly promise – I will go back in time and stop it happening and put time back on the right path. You have my word. But right now, I have no TARDIS, no companion, no money, just this put in me while I was unconscious!” he waved his wrist in front of them. “Three times I’ve been dumped somewhere unconscious with this in me, first The New Jungle, secondly in a... in a... a brothel...”

Saki picked up his hand and held it.

“And now here. I don’t know where here is. People kept calling it the secure compound, but I don’t know where I am at all!” he continued, almost ranting, his eyes panicked, barely noticing Saki soothing his hand with her thumb.

“Where were you Doctor?” Nazir asked.

“Brussels. The Chinese Embassy. They had my TARDIS, and they are somehow blocking her from me... she usually translates for me and gives me extra energy and... I feel lost,” the Doctor admitted, hanging his head.

“Have you been forced to use the app? Have things been done against your consent?” Saki asked gently.

The Doctor stared pointedly at the floor.

“I’ll see how Tasmeen is coming along with the food,” Nazir said, and headed for the kitchen.

“I spent years setting up support and counselling for Asian women rape and domestic violence survivors, and worked with Middle Eastern and African survivors of rape used as warfare and torture. If you wish to talk, I am here for you.”

She let go of his hand and picked up her tea and took a sip, waiting.

The Doctor looked up and sipped his tea, curling his hands around the mug. It was hot, sweet, milky, and spicy. He hadn’t drunk Indian chai for a long while. It was comforting. He replaced the mug and took a deep breath.

“I had no money and no support. I woke up injured having no idea where I was. People were kind. Some people were kind. But I needed food and train fares...” the Doctor shuddered and scrubbed at his face with his hands and looked down. “I had to get back to the Embassy, I had to get my TARDIS...” he took a shuddering sigh. “The second time they didn’t just sedate me and leave me, I woke up and I had... they had... then when I wouldn’t cooperate, they... again... they... raped me. Every time I close my eyes...”

“It was not your fault. You were drugged. You were helpless. You had no choice. Once a person has that tattoo, no one thinks of her... or him... as a person anymore. We campaigned against it, said it wouldn’t stop trafficking. Now look, it’s been used against a real alien, not just a migrant foreigner.”

“I tried to fight, the second time, when the drugs had worn off. I did. But I feel so... weak...”

“No, you are strong. Are you really the same man I met so many years ago? He was strong, but he was hurting, I could tell. You will get through this. My husband will find a way to help.”

Nazir came in with his granddaughter, carrying trays of food.

“I shouldn’t, I know food is rationed and you’re refugees...” the Doctor protested politely.

“This is a gilded cage Doctor. We get more food, but little money as we can’t leave without permission. Besides, a little pilau rice, some daal, and aloo tikis, and paratha, is not much. Please, eat...”

The Doctor stood. “I must wash my hands.”

When he came back, having washed his face too, Nazir had taken the chair from his desk and was sitting opposite the sofa, the coffee table loaded with food, tea, and water, between him and the sofa. Tasneem was nowhere to be seen. Pop music came from one of the bedrooms.

“You must be wondering how I know so much,” Nazir began, as the Doctor helped himself to a paratha and dunked it into the daal. 

He nodded. 

“For many years I was a Peer, and I sat for most of them on the C19 Committee, so I knew about UNIT and Torchwood. And you. I never let on I’d met you. I’d have not been allowed on the committee otherwise. And it seemed like a lifetime ago, a young man who owned a fish and chips shop who met an Earth Reptile and didn’t go mad.”

“You must have been strong. And enlightened. I don’t think twenty first century humans are affected, the twentieth was the last cry of the race memory.”

“How can we help you?”

“I made arrangements this time, before I broke into the Embassy to get information. I hid, back in Brussels, a bag with money cards and fake IDs, along with clean clothes and food. I need to get back to them and then I’m going to Beijing by train and try to pick up the TARDIS or Yu’s trail. Yu was my companion. I was bringing him home. But I don’t think he expected this, his treatment or the state of Europe. They’re going to harvest his organs if I can’t get to him...”

“Are they still doing that? They used to sell them to US medical companies, for rich Americans, but America has collapsed. The worst of the ash cloud is over the Atlantic, it makes navigation difficult.”

“But I heard about Canadian food aid...?”

“It comes mostly over the Baring Straits and through Russia, ” Saki replied. “Alaska ceded to Canadian protection. Some ships try to navigate the Atlantic waters when the winds are favourable, but...” she shrugged. “We tried to raise awareness of the selling of prisoners organs. They are killed to order, sometimes. It’s supposed to be murderers, but they do it to political prisoners, or were...”

Nazir glanced at the paling Doctor, “But that is not helpful right now. I will make some calls, some of the old C19 Committee are here, we will try to raise enough to get your train fare back to Brussels, okay? Excuse me,” he stood up, pulling his phone from his pocket and walked off...

“As-salaam-alkaim. Acha...”

“Do not worry,” Saki said. “We will get you back to your belongings. I wish we could do more, but we are so old and not allowed to leave. I want Tasneem left out of this; she is my only remaining family. I have no idea what happened to my children and grandchildren, and I fear the worse.”

The Doctor held Saki’s hand. “Thank you for being so kind. I know it must be hard for you. I promise, as soon as I find my TARDIS I will try to change this back to how it is supposed to be.”

“No. First you will give yourself time to deal with the trauma of what has been done to you. Then worry about us humans. Promise?”

The Doctor nodded.

“Meanwhile, eat, you are so thin.”

The Doctor picked up a plate from the tray and began ladling rice and daal onto his plate. “Thank you. I still don’t know where I am.”

“Strasbourg,” Saki replied. “We were here as a deputation to the European Court of Human Rights. But what could they do to a country who won’t listen, who leaves the Convention?” She shrugged helplessly.

“They gave you a safe home, at least,” the Doctor replied, mouth full of paratha and daal.

A while later, Nazir returned from the kitchen. “My former colleagues and I have managed to scrape your train fare. Tasneem’s friend from college is coming to the gate to take you to the station. Another former politician will escort you to the gate, as if he had engaged your services. I’m sorry Doctor, but it is the safest way.”

“Please don’t apologise. You’ve done so much to help me.”

*

To the Doctor’s surprise, the broken man who had spoken to him before arrived the Ahmeds’ door. He was equally surprised to see the Doctor,

“I’m so sorry,” he stuttered out. “I really had no idea. It’s over thirty years since I was on the C19 Committee. You must forgive me, I did not recognise you, I had no idea...”

“It’s fine,” the Doctor said, “blame those who put this in me. You knew no better. You were kind, at least, to me, thinking I was abandoned by a client and not wanting me in trouble.”

“You will take tea, Michael?”

“Thank you, no. We should get to the gate before the curfew. I’m sorry it took me so long, I’ve been walking to everyone’s flop for hours, but I have enough for the train fare.” Michael patted his pocket.

“And you are sure you don’t mind...?” Ahmed began, a red flush of embarrassment spreading across his brown cheeks.

Michael snorted. “Staying in the closet is the least of my worries! Besides, it was always more of an open secret; I was foolish to think otherwise. I’m sure the gossip will be more where did I get the money from? I wasn’t able to get any of my assets out of the UK,” he turned to the Doctor. “I had assumed as I worked for the BBC I was safe and left it too long. I was lucky to be allowed in here at all, but I had a few friends.”

“You’re alive and well, that is a victory,” the Doctor said, smiling at the man.

Michael opened the door and held his arm, “Shall we go?”

The Doctor took Michael’s arm, turning first to thank his hosts and rescuers. He had been helped by so many kind people, refugees, and Europeans, people who knew him, and those who didn’t. Being left here he had landed on his feet. He wondered why he had been dumped here and not back in the New Jungle? What had the Chinese hoped to break in him, bringing him here?

“What exactly is this place?” the Doctor asked as they began to cross the squares, courts, and quads, of the large housing development, having to skirt the blocks of containers making more homes.

“The Old European Council and Court of Human Rights were inundated with deputations from business people, media people, and politicians of all affiliations – the abuse of human rights began even before Article 50 was triggered...”

“Article 50?”

“The treaty trigger to come out of the European Union. With hindsight, they had begun, to disabled people and Muslims, before the referendum. This thing crept slowly, and unless a person knew a person affected it was easy to sneer at the warnings. Like putting a frog in cold water and slowly bringing it to the boil. It doesn’t know it’s being killed, we didn’t know we were walking inevitably towards fascism. We had no idea. Really. We all arrogantly believed, as we defeated Hitler, we were safe from fascism. Oddly, it was the Germans who could see the way we were headed. There were many cases that were trying to be hurried through before the end of the two-year negotiations ended and Britain exited Europe – those concerning the rights of European citizens and illegal electioneering and vote rigging. They also were receiving Turks fleeing their President’s increasing dictatorship, along with high profile Syrian refugees. This estate had been condemned, but instead, they shored it up, and as more of us arrived, they built the container blocks also. There are four governments in exile here, well, two actual officially recognised ones and then there are the Turks and us; we have alternative, free governments, elected by internet from among the refugees.”

“The actual governments are Iceland and Syria, I assume? I heard about the volcanoes and something about the fields of Syria burning?”

“American and Russian carpet bombing and ISIS and the government torching the ground plus climate change, which had triggered the whole God-damned three or four way civil war in the first place. At least it’s not nuclear waste, unlike Korea.”

“What?”

“The unofficial ‘Third World War’ -” here Michael let go of the Doctor’s arm to make a sign indicating quotation marks, “- according to the American President and his cohorts, at least, lasted five days, you know. I like to think of it as the Fourth, the Cold War was really the Third World War, just because we white westerners in the north didn’t experience anything first hand...”

“Humans have a remarkable capacity for self deception and fantasy categories to excuse their hatred and violence! You’re all homo sapiens, why create such divisions? You’ve always done it I suppose.”

“But will we always continue to do so Doctor?”

“No. You’ll turn your superiority complex onto aliens. But at least you’ll unite as a species. At least I hope so! How did Britain turn into a fascist state? Where did it go wrong?”

“Some would say joining the EEC in the first place, others that opposition was allowed to fester unchecked for forty odd years. Many would point to a certain tabloid rag, I’m loathe to call it a ‘news’ paper, for all the younger me loved its support. I look back on my political self with shame. Others would point to a frog faced toad of a banker who took over a crackpot party and achieved its aims by making them mainstream.” Michael shrugged. “Who knows?”

“If I had a clue...”

Michael squeezed the Doctor’s arm. “My dear fellow, first you must find your time vessel before you can think about changing our past. But surely you are not allowed to do that?”

“Believe me, the world isn’t meant to be like this. The twentieth first century isn’t meant to be nice, all flowers and peace and happiness, it is going to be awful, but Britain is meant to stay connected, a bridge to the US and Europe. Russia isn’t meant to take over Europe, which it is, isn’t it, bit by bit? I’m not sure about Iceland, I remember volcanic eruptions slowing global warming to the point of starvation in places, but I thought it was in Hungary and Italy... and perhaps later? Tell me, who is Salamander?”

“Salamander? A jumped up Mexican businessman who made a killing after the collapse of the US economy, whose technology helped the Australians fend of starvation and economic collapse following the Great Bush Fires of ’21. He’s in the pockets of the Saudis and the Turks. His new Sunmaker should reinvigorate the wheat fields of Russia. The New EuroCombine are so far up his arse too. He’s a man with ambition, far too many ambitions, and like the Russian President, one with brains and sanity, unlike the disasters in my own country and the States. Why?”

“I’ve been in this time zone before, but I didn’t pay attention as I should to the bigger picture, I took those people around me views at face value. But now, I’m stuck, with this –” the Doctor lifted his sleeve, “- and no TARDIS, and I realise I just have a vague overview from my own peoples files and books. But time feels wrong, as if there was a divergence, a temporal schism, and I’m either in another universe – which is supposed to be impossible – or time has gone awry. I don’t know which, but it gives me a headache, all the time.” The Doctor grinned weakly. “Although, I confess, that could just be hunger.”

“We are always hungry. If you can undo this, I, for one, will be entirely grateful.” Michael put his hand onto the Doctor’s on his other arm and patted. “We are here.”

The walked up to a road leading into the estate, a barrier and a hut similar to the one that had stopped the Doctor’s exit of the New Jungle. Two soldiers emerged from the hut and watched them walk the last six or seven metres.

“Hello,” Michael said in faultless French, “I’m signing out this young man for a friend.”

“Hello,” the Doctor waved his left hand, making sure his sleeve slipped back.

“Name. Time you were signed in. Papers.”

“Ah. I’ve had my ID stolen. Can’t you check my chip? I’m known as the Doctor. I was signed in yesterday, about this time.” The Doctor smiled hopefully.

“You. Name and origin, monsieur, and name of your ‘friend’,” the soldier turned to Michael, his sneer indicating he didn’t believe in this fictional friend for one moment.

“Michael Portillo. British. I’m signing him out for... ah, well, he would rather not say. I met the Doctor for him at the gates approximately twenty four hours ago.”

“You did not see us, and our shift started about an hour ago.”

“I did say, approximately. We’ve been drinking, you know. Partying. My friend’s seventieth birthday, you know.”

“Richard is rubbish at paperwork,” the second soldier commented, as he continued to scroll through his heavy-duty tablet, looking for the signing-in reference. The other soldier nodded, looking annoyed. He sighed and flipped its black leather case closed and pulled out his phone and thumbed an app. He turned to his colleague; “This is for work only. You tell my wife I will kill you.”

The other soldier shrugged into a particular Gallic way, “I do not care,” he said, and looked over the shoulder of his partner to read the details that the Doctor’s chip was showing, his eyes raking over the Doctor’s skinny form rather lasciviously,

“Okay, it is fine,” he said, and lifted the barrier.

The Doctor turned and, on impulse, hugged Michael. “Thank you!”

Michael pulled out an envelope and handed into the Doctor. “Your ‘fee’ Doctor.”

“Thank you so much,” he said again, and then he turned to the soldiers, “and you too, you lovely men. I thought I was stuck in there forever, since my ID was stolen.” He nipped under the barrier, and with one glance back at Michael and the compound, ran up the driveway towards what looked like a main road.

*

Just around the corner a scooter was parked up, a young man in red jeans and a black denim jacket sat astride it, helmet on. He pulled it off to reveal a young man with chiselled features and stubble, with long black hair.

“The Doctor?” he asked.

“Um. Yes. Are you Tasneem’s friend? Or rather, friend’s boyfriend?”

He laughed. “We’re all our own best friend, aren’t we?” he spoke French with an Italian accent. “But, for her parents, yes, her friend is dating me. She’s never told them I existed before. We’re at college together. I’m Fabio.”

“Hello Fabio, I’m the Doctor.”

Fabio handed the Doctor a helmet. “Get on, I’ll take you to the station. The sleeper leaves in a couple of hours. I’ll buy you some food for the journey, okay?”

“Thank you,” the Doctor said, climbing behind Fabio. It was a cute bike, a classic Italian scooter in design, the kind that was so fashionable in the last century, when he’d been exiled. He had one in the TARDIS somewhere; he’d shown off to Rose with its twin. He briefly wanted her with him, then dismissed the idea, she wouldn’t cope with the tattoo, and he was sure they’d do that to her too. And she loved him too much, too obsessively, to see him fall apart. And he was a Doctor fraying very thin at the edges right now.

Two hours later, he was pulling out of Strasbourg and yet another fast train, in yet another sleeper compartment. But he had food, a couple of paperbacks, and his glasses. Sleep, he felt, after all the drugs, would elude him. This journey was slightly longer than the last, six hours and forty minutes. He would arrive in Berlin at 0639. Plenty of time to get to Anton’s apartment and dig up his bag and then hopefully see Anton and get the money he promised him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some RPF characters within a fictional setting. Lord Nazir Ahmed, originally a Labour Peer, now a cross-party peer. I have no idea if he is on a select committee concerning aliens - he maybe for all we know ;) His wife is a complete fictionalised version. I made up the granddaughter. Michael Portillo, once a Thatcherite MP and challenger to her leadership, and a minister under the Major regime, who spectacularly was defeated, losing a previously safe seat, the first major ‘kill’ of the massive Blair landslide of 1997. He has since regenerated into a cosy TV presenter about trains and train journeys and history, and seems far less right wing and obnoxious. My daughter loves his shows and was horrified to find out his was a nasty Thatcherite Tory!


	12. Onwards At Last

The Doctor had little money left after what had been scraped together by the Free Britains in Strasbourg and he had been lucky that security had been lapse and no official had asked for his ID, as he had none but the microchip in his wrist. He made it straight to the local trains out to the suburbs, remembering the route the strange woman, Clara, had told him only a few days ago. Was it two? Or three? He was losing count. It might even be under 36 hours. He had no way of telling how long he had been unconscious before he woke up by the rubbish in the rain in the Secure Compound.

Anton was getting into his dinky little BMW as the Doctor walked into the cul de sac of apartment blocks and gardens from the bus stop. He stood up and watched the Doctor walk, wearily, towards him, grinning.

“Doctor!” he called. “I still have your money.”

“Good,” the Doctor replied curtly, stopping a short metre and a half in front of Anton, out of touching reach. He hugged himself and shuddered. “I have some other belongings. I buried them when you were out. I need a spade.”

Anton looked about. Several neighbours were getting into cars, some with children. He nodded to a man, and smiled and waved to a woman and her two children. “Come in and a have a cup of tea. It’s a bit exposed to go digging in the communal gardens, don’t you think?”

The Doctor sighed and hung his head, nodding. “Lead on,” he said quietly.

Anton didn’t like the Doctor’s body language or quiet voice one little bit, but asked nothing, merely picked up his bag and laptop and locked his car, before walking back to his block.

The Doctor followed him all the way up the stairs and through the flat to the kitchen in silence, watching Anton put the water on to boil and root around in his bare cupboards for a packet of biscuits or cakes. He found some Madeleines and dumped them on the counter, pushing the fruit bowl with its wizened apples towards the Doctor. 

The Doctor sat down and opened the packet of cakes, but said nothing.

“I’m glad to see you safe. You say you made it back to me once before? What happened?”

“What about you?”

Anton shrugged. “So far, nothing. I’ve heard nothing from either the Chinese government or either of my employers. I go to work and translate boring meetings at the moment.”

“But you were undercover in Paris?”

“My information had been duly noted. But my handler hasn’t set up any further meetings, so...” Anton shrugged. “Did you hypnotise me into going into the Embassy?”

“That was your idea. Did you report what you found?”

“Some Doctor. Not all.” Anton grinned. “The Russians know that the Chinese have an alien time capsule and are experimenting on the alien.”

“You didn’t tell then it was me?”

Anton noted that the Doctor didn’t even question the experimentation. That was interesting. Or worrying. He shook his head. “Not even that it’s a Time Lord.” He turned his back on the Doctor to make the tea and didn’t see the Doctor shiver violently a moment before he pulled himself together to give Anton a watery smile when he handed him his tea.

Anton smiled back more warmly. “Give me a few minutes and we can tell each other what has happened since we were caught,” he said diplomatically, although he had already told the Doctor that nothing untoward or interesting had happened to him. He pulled his phone from his pocket and called the Russian Embassy, telling them he had a stomach bug and would be off for a day or two, then hung up and sat down opposite the Doctor. For something to do he sipped his tea.

The Doctor was still looking down, as if the answers were in his steaming mug of tea.

“Did they drug you again? Abandon you in the Jungle again?”

“The second time I woke in Strasbourg, in the Secure Compound, which is just a rich person’s Jungle, isn’t it?”

“Not quite. Almost. Second time?”

“The first time I got back here with some... help. I bought some things. You weren’t here so I buried them before I went back. I was caught immediately. They knew of our previous way in, they left it open as a trap.”

“I’m sorry. They didn’t learn it from me. Did they... did they hurt you?” Anton reached out across the table and squeezed the Doctor’s hand. The Doctor leapt back, as if he had been stung, pulling his hand away and standing, tipping the chair back and spilling his tea on his legs as he did so, not seeming to notice the burning heat of the near scolding liquid. Anton jumped up and took a step towards the Doctor, concerned for the possible burn on his legs.

“Don’t touch me!” he yelled at Anton, flailing his arms wildly. “Just don’t touch me! I woke up in a brothel, naked! That’s what happened to me, okay? I woke up in a brothel to find I’ve been... and when I wouldn’t cooperate these men held me down and beat me and... they did that to me! Again! The Master rescued me and took it out and now they’ve put it back in me and I’m not safe... I’m not safe! Not safe at all!” the Doctor backed away, doubling over and hugging his stomach. Anton took a step towards him. “I said don’t come near me! Don’t touch me!” the Doctor stood up. “What is wrong with you humans? Sex isn’t a contact sport or a recreation or a means of dominating and controlling. It’s about love, it’s about the bonds that bind you, the cords that tie spouse to spouse, it’s about the merging of body and mind until you’re lost in each other, bound and connected...” the Doctor stood, panting, crying, glaring at Anton with a hatred which was aimed at his entire species. 

Anton stood there, passively, his face a mask. “Would you like a hug Doctor?” he asked. “An entirely platonic, asexual, hug to make you feel less alone? You’re right. Human beings are monsters.” The Doctor sniffed and wiped his snot away with the back of his hand, and nodded.

Anton held out his arms and waited for the Doctor to come to him, which he did after a few moments, folding in on the hug, resting his head on Anton’s shoulder, his whole body shuddering with tears he had kept contained for days. Anton held him tight, making no movements to caress or stroke his hair or even pat reassuringly, worried that any move not asked for or initiated by the Doctor would trigger him further. When the Doctor’s sobs had subsided and finished he spoke gently,

“I have been so worried for you. The things that Chinese Brigadier said, the way he looked at you.”

“It wasn’t him. At least I doubt it. But how would I know? They drugged me the first time.”

“And the Master?”

“Is gone. Or will be soon. Are we speaking English?”

“Yes.”

“Is it quite as awkward as before?”

“Yes. No. I don’t think so actually. Do you understand me?” Anton asked in Russian.

“Perfectly. Oh. Then he hasn’t left. His TARDIS is still translating for me.”

“What was he doing?”

“Common theft, or uncommon. Art theft. In Berlin. He was an echo, a previous incarnation, from hundreds of years in my past. He shouldn’t have got involved, us crossing time streams. Yet how could he leave me in that brothel?”

“Your nemesis, rescuing you. But as you told me, also your ex-husband. How could he leave you there, after what had happened?”

“Exactly. He killed a few people, far more than I would have liked. He killed the men who... raped me.”

“Good,” Anton said coldly. “Would you like a bath? Or shower? I can get your suit cleaned. And once it is quiet, try to dig up whatever you buried, if you tell me where. I’ll book you on the express to Paris, then you can pick up the weekly Moscow train, it runs tomorrow, I believe.”

“No! Not Paris!” the Doctor snapped, pulling away from Anton.

“Too many memories. I understand. Well then, it is back to Berlin and onto Warsaw and then you can pick up the trundling sleeper to Moscow. I’ll book through tickets and ones for the next TransSiberian, okay? But I’m sure you would love a bath and me to get that suit and coat cleaned. Black? Courtesy or the Master, perhaps?”

The Doctor laughed. “Oh, you’ve been doing your homework, I see?”

“I was interested, following our conversations, I looked out the files. I covered my tracks so hopefully UNIT Russia won’t realise I hid the fact of your presence. I hope, anyway.”

“It’s of no matter. They might help me. Maybe?” the Doctor shrugged. “A bath would be good. And some sleep. I wasn’t able to on the train; the drugs and the memory and the smell made it impossible. I’m sorry about the smell. They dumped me next to the rubbish in the Compound.”

“I can tell,” Anton said flatly. “Show me where you buried your belongings and tell me what they are.”

“It’s a weekend travel bag. I buried it behind the yews next to the tennis courts and the statue of an angel. At least, I hope it’s a statue...”

“What?”

“Never mind, you don’t want to know. I mean, you really don’t want to know!” the Doctor grinned weakly.

“Leave your clothes outside the bathroom, I’ll get them clean. You remember where the bathroom is. I’ll make you more tea if you don’t object to my seeing you.”

“You’ve seen and taken all I have to offer Anton.”

“I know, but...”

“And I trust you not to do so again. Not without my consent.”

“Is there any chance of that?” Anton couldn’t help asking hopefully.

The Doctor shook his head and turned to walk out of the kitchen.

“No,” Anton muttered to himself sadly, “I thought not.” He then fetched a spade and went out.

*

A polite tap on the door and Anton calling his name awaked the Doctor. He sat up and stretched; dropping the toy rabbit he had hugged for comfort. Anton had let him lock himself in his guest room and left him to sleep after his bath. He called out an answer and quickly got up and dressed, pushing the white fluffy toy back into the travel bag along with tee shirt he’d been sleeping in. He ran his fingers through his hair to make sure it stood on end perfectly before he opened the door, ready to go. The nap had done him some good.

“I’ve been thinking,” Anton said. He had changed out of his work clothes, and was dressed in a pair of black jeans and a red shirt and grey jacket.

“About what?”

“Hiding the tattoo, blocking its chip pinging.”

“What?”

“Do you trust me?”

“No further than I could throw you!” the Doctor snapped tartly, then relented, grinning. “No, a little bit. Right now I’m not good at trusting human males. But yeah, little tiny bit. You’ve been so kind. What do you mean?”

“I need you to sit on the bed and take off your jacket and shirt. I won’t hurt you, I promise.”

The Doctor shuddered involuntarily and blinked rapidly, his chest heaving with the beginning of a panic attack.

“I’m going to wrap it in foil, then a bandage, then plaster it up as if you’ve broken it. Then you can use the ID the Master arranged for you. With no questions asked. It should get you through Europe safely. Then it won’t matter. It will, as in being a homosexual is illegal in my country. But that means any Russian who has grafted the app onto their Russian phone will be far more circumspect about approaching you, or worse, and the authorities will leave you alone unless they catch you in any compromising situation.”

“Which they won’t,” the Doctor said firmly. “I have no intention of using this thing again. I have the money from you and the cards from the Master. Thank you, by the way.”

Anton shrugged, “It was your calculations, so your money.” He was referring to the Casino in Paris; where the Doctor had noticed the fixed imbalance and calculated each win on the slight variance on the spin. With his share of the winnings along with the money he had earned as the Escort for Madam Chantelle’s Agency he now had five thousand Euros along with the money cards in Euros, Roubles, and Yen that the Master had given him. He didn’t even need to purchase his tickets, as Anton had bought a through ticket to Warsaw, changing at Berlin, another to Moscow and one for the Trans-Siberian Express, leaving the following Tuesday. After than, he was on his own. He would have four days, two days to spare. More than that, Anton had gained information before the Chinese had discovered them. He had more than enough money to get him to Shanghai, Yu’s last known location, and Base 27 in the mountainous region of Xichang in Sichuam province, was where the train was still heading. He had to hope his fake Chinese citizenship, his fake passport, his money, and his Mandarin was enough to get him to the TARDIS if he couldn’t get to Yu first.

He sat down and took of his jacket and started to unbutton his shirt and undo his tie. Anton left him, coming back with all he needed.

After Anton had wrapped the Doctor’s wrist in soft cotton, he wrapped three layers of foil around where the chip was, and then pulled on a gauze bandage, before putting on lightweight plaster in blue. He helped the Doctor get dressed and then helped him with a sling to complete the look.

“I’ve booked a taxi to take you to the station. I’ve got you on the sleeper to Berlin, and then on the nine o’clock train to Warsaw. It should give you a couple of hours to stretch your legs and get something to eat.”

“Are you... you...” the Doctor stuttered. He frowned and grabbed the back of his neck with his right hand. He cried out something that Anton didn’t recognise, but the linguist in him suspected was Gallifreyan for No. Or perhaps a choice swearword? He guessed correctly that the Master’s TARDIS had just left Earth. The Doctor gulped a huge breath and sighed before asking carefully and slowly in French, “Are you not coming with me to the... station?”

Anton shook his head, the linguist he was sliding effortlessly to French from the Russian he had been speaking. “My car will be tracked. I’m off sick. I don’t want either of my employers suspecting a thing. Any of them,” he correctly wryly, meaning the Chinese.

The Doctor stared for a moment, then nodded. “Fuck!” he said unhappily. “It’s going to take me a while to get the hang of all the translating and remembering again.”

“Well, you can swear in Anglo-Saxon, that’s a good start,” Anton said dryly.

The intercom for the apartment block door buzzed.

“Your taxi.”

The Doctor and Anton stood and looked at each other.

“Thank you. For everything,” the Doctor said, holding out his hand to shake.

Anton took his hand, but then pulled him into a hug. “Good luck. And when you have your TARDIS back I wish I could ask you to come fetch me. But you are going to rescue Commander Chan, and three will be a crowd.”

The Doctor blushed pink, and nodded. But he kissed Anton gently on the mouth. “Thank you. And good luck too. I will try...”

But he was interrupted by the intercom buzzing again.

“Goodbye Doctor,” Anton said firmly.

The Doctor nodded, let go of Anton, picked up his bag and left.

 

*

 

Meanwhile, in Geneva, in the UNIT Europe headquarters, a man in a white suit and hat was storming down a corridor, followed by two women, both taller than him. The one with the tight brown pony tail was armed and dressed in black, with a backpack slung over one shoulder, while the short haired woman, was in desert combat trousers and a green top, her canvas bag swinging against her hip.

The man was angry, furiously angry, as he pushed open the door to an office marked ‘UNIT Europe C in C’,

“How dare you ignore the abuses by your Chinese Counterparts!?” he bellowed in a terrifying Scottish brogue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes it is!


	13. Forced off the Train

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning below

The train arrived in Berlin at just after six in the morning. The Doctor had surprised himself by sleeping again. He was also taking comfort in the soft toy. He knew it was silly and rather childish, but having something safe and fluffy to hug kept the flashbacks and nightmares regarding the brothel at bay. It was exhausting, the business of translating from French to Gallifreyan, mentally, and stumbling over the odd word which had gone out of usage, or changed meaning, since the eighteenth century, which was the French he had learnt. Apart from he and Koschei, running away during the Republic, the first place and time on Earth he and Susan had visited had been during the French Revolution. The revolution, from someone so frustrated and bored by the static, unchanging, class-ridden, Gallifrey, had inspired and enthused him. Regimes could be toppled, could be changed, old notions of class and elites could be swept away. His young self struck him as so naive now, but the basis premise remained, except revolutions grew stale, new stratifications of society emerged, there was always poverty and exploitation of some kind.

He was able to stock up on a little more food for his travel bag and eat a good breakfast in a better cafe, once again able to use his ration book with the fake ID the Master had arranged. He bought a couple of paperbacks, a trashy romance and a SF novel, for a laugh, along with a newspaper. The Chinese and Indian Mars Space Race, along with Salamander and famines in the Middle East and Australia were the headlines. He wished he knew more about this era, so he could work out what was going wrong, and when. Britain didn’t feature at all; it was closed to journalists along with everyone else.

His train left at nine, but he was able to board a good twenty minutes before it left, and he found a good seat with a table near the end of the carriage. A German businesswoman, who smiled and nodded, sat down opposite him, but then took out her laptop and began to work, joined him just as the train pulled out.

*

The Doctor jumped as the train slammed on its breaks and looked out of the window. He wasn’t the only one. People were talking in various languages and some standing up and shouting, some getting onto their phones. He couldn’t understand anything that was being said, there was a babble of German, Polish, and Russian, with a smattering of other languages but nothing in French or English. He couldn’t believe how frightening it was not to know or understand what was going on around him. This train wasn’t scheduled to stop until Warsaw, and they weren’t even at a station, or anywhere near a town or city, as far as he could tell. He turned to the woman who had been sitting opposite him since Berlin,

“What’s happening?” he asked in English.

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Are you English?” asked a German young man. “It says on Twitter trains are being stopped at the Polish border for some reason. Or at least, my friend does,” he chuckled. 

Meanwhile, some young men travelling together, who had climbed onto their table to better look out of the window the other side to the Doctor, were talking excitedly in Polish. He heard the word, policja, which didn’t take much to recognise as police.

“Excuse me!” the Doctor stood up and reached for his holdall and coat over the seats, pulling his coat on quickly. The woman looked at him curiously. “Bathroom,” he said hurriedly.

The nearest loo was the disabled one. He went in and locked the door, breathing out and trying not to panic. He had never been in a situation where he had no idea what was going on, or at least not for centuries, and then he hadn’t been alone. He pressed his head against the door and concentrated telepathically.

“Please. Old girl. Come on my dear. Anything, any translation at all. Please help. I need help dearest. Sexy please!”

The Doctor’s mind bumped up against a TARDIS. Not his, but yet another one. He felt she was deeply affronted that a Time Lord would address a sister in such a manner, but she grudging included him into her translation matrix in time for him to catch the third announcement over the train tannoy, in Russian, asking for the passengers patience while the police bordered and searched for an escaped terrorist, but giving a reassurance there was nothing to be concerned about, that they were safe.

He pressed his ear to the door. He could now make out what the group of young Polish students had been saying, and could hear them speculate on why there was an unmarked car with Chinese soldiers in it. 

The Doctor’s breath began to get ragged and uneven. He couldn’t panic!

Focus Doctor, focus!

This was the Master’s suit!

He began to rifle through the pockets, frantically. Eventually he found what looked like a laser scalpel with a sonic attachment in the lining of a pocket. He tried to operate it but it seemed to be isomorphic. Typical of the Master!

He pushed his ear back to the door. Police and soldiers were in his carriage. The woman he had sat opposite was being questioned.

“Oh my God! He seemed so sweet!” she heard her say. “He said he went to toilet.”

“Please!” The Doctor telepathically shouted at the Master’s laser. “Come on, I know you belong to him. It’s the Doctor, you know no one but him is allowed to kill me. Or hurt me! Or rape me!”

At that it switched on for him.

Hurriedly, he threw the bag down and opened it, pushing his money and cards and ID into his pockets, and then grabbed Fizzy and kissed her nose before pushing her into his inner pocket. “In case we’re separated,” he whispered. He then unfurled the strap and put the bag over his shoulder and, grabbing hold of one of the support rails beside the toilet and hauled himself up, feet balanced on the cistern and the basin. In the ceiling was a skylight. The Doctor pointed the Master’s laser and began to unscrew it. It popped off just as the police began knocking on the door, speaking in accented English.

“Mind the power lines Doctor,” he muttered to himself as he pulled himself up, awkwardly, as the plastered wrist wouldn’t bend, feet precariously balanced and pushing from the top of the folded up support railing. He slid out onto his stomach and twisted, carefully replacing the roof window and resealing, sliding back just in time as the train manager opened the door for the police.

He lay there, listening intently. They decided the lock had been broken and went out in the corridor again. He slid back and off the side of the train, landing like a cat, bending his knees, between the tracks. Across four lots of track was some scrubland of bushes and ferns before a thick line of trees falling down a steep slope. He skipped across the tracks, muttering to himself to not step on the electrified rails. He looked back as he left the tracks. He didn’t think anyone had seen him. He pushed through the branches and leaves of the bush in front of him, it was holly and it scratched him a lot, but it had a hollow centre. He squatted down, watching the train from through the leaves. He thought he could see movement as men walked through, looking for him. Or he suspected for him. Why else would the Chinese be with the German and Polish police?

After about twenty minutes the train pulled away, picking up speed rapidly as the driver obviously tried to make up for lost time and get it back to timetable. Once it had left it left three cars were revealed, a German and a Polish police car and an unmarked black saloon with diplomatic plates and the Chinese flag. The police officers shook hands and then got into their respective cars and drove off in opposite directions. The two Chinese soldiers stayed, one scanning the area with binoculars while the other appeared to be scanning electronically with a handheld device. The Doctor shrank back further, careful not to disturb the branches or leaves.

After a few minutes the two soldiers got into their car and drove away. The Doctor crawled awkwardly and painfully out of the holly bush, brushing spiky leaves from his hair and coat.

He stood and looked. The railway was cut into the side of the mountain in a terrace. Above was forest, as was below, but through the trees below the Doctor could make out a small road, and lower still a motorway, and then in the valley, the glint of a river far below. He wanted to think about the fact that a TARDIS was translating again, a TARDIS that was not his. It was as if the Time War never happened. He had to be in an alternative reality, but how? However, he had no time to think about such things, he has to concentrate on such as surviving while he crossed half the planet by land to find his TARDIS. And rescue Yu.

“Down it is Doctor,” he said to himself and began his descent, slipping and sliding on the ferns, brambles, dead leaves, and loam. He misjudged his step and skidded onto his backside, landing painfully. He fell further than he need have done as he tried to grab a tree trunk to prevent his slide he couldn’t, handicapped as he was by his left wrist held in a plaster cast. He finally stopped after over a hundred metres by smashing into a large oak. He cried out in pain and bit his lip to stop himself actually crying.

“You’re fine Doctor!” he said to himself aloud.

Long way down. At least another half a mile. No path. Hard going. You’ll need both hands.

“No. It’s blocking it.”

You’re not safe Doctor. Better risk the app than break your neck. Don’t want to risk regenerating without the TARDIS or any friends near by.

“Don’t want to die!”

The Doctor sat up more comfortably, pulled the Master’s laser scalpel from his pocket, slipped off his coat and jacket sleeve and tried to roll up his shirtsleeve, but it wouldn’t go over the cast. He let out a noise of frustration and then cut through the sleeve too, pulling the cast open and sliding it off. He then pulled off the bandage and, sighing, unwrapped the strip of foil, and finally the soft cotton scarf, which he shoved absently in his pocket. He started to try to stand, leaving the debris of his app blocker where it was, when he heard a rustle in the trees above him. He looked up and saw a majestic deer walking through the forest.

“Animals Doctor, you stupid idiot!” he whispered, and struggled to roll over to his knees and pulled off his bag from his back and stuffed his rubbish into it. Once on his knees he found it easier to lean on the oak tree and get back to his feet. His legs shook a little. He continued his careful ascent down to the road.

Once he got there, he gave himself a quick appraisal. He was muddy, especially his knees, the back his coat, and the seat of his trousers, and his shirtsleeve was ripped. His hands and face were scratched too. He sat down and rooted through his bag, pulling out both sterile and baby wipes, clean tee shirt and shirt and a brush and, stepping back off the road, behind a clump of bushes and large tree, and attended to his toilette.

Feeling cleaner and more presentable he began walking down the road, in the direction of what he hoped was the junction with the autobahn, where he could hopefully hitch a lift to Warsaw.

He walked for an hour, seeing very little but a couple of signs to small hamlets in Polish, so he at least knew he had crossed the border, with only three cars passing him, until he heard a heavy vehicle and stuck out his thumb again. A large articulated lorry stopped and the passenger door opened.

“Wanna lift?” a man asked in Polish.

The Doctor took a step to the open door. A blond man in a black tee shirt and check shirt was leaning across the seats to open the door. He had a short beard and moustache and black specs. He looked safe enough.

“Cost ya,” the driver said.

The Doctor thought about all the Euros he still had in cash and on the money card. He’d spend very little of the Master’s or Anton’s money so far. “Fine,” he said, throwing up his bag and climbing up into the cab.

*

“British eh?” the driver said after a while. The Doctor had sat back and enjoyed the beautiful scenery through the Oder Valley for a while, listening to the music playing through the trucker’s ipod. It was mostly noughties Britpop. His driver had seemed to be a man of very few words. He didn’t even respond to the Doctor’s thank you, hello, and introduction after he had climbed into the cab.

“M’m,” the Doctor agreed. There was no point telling the truth and be seen as a nutter.

“I worked and lived there for years. Manchester. Then London. Then Cornwall. Building. Where are you from?”

“London,” the Doctor decided, his UNIT lab had been in London for a while, before they moved out into the countryside. “Buckinghamshire,” he added, then remembered his old house from his Seventh persona, “and Kent.”

“Boat boy?”

“M’m,” the Doctor agreed again, looking worriedly at the trucker’s hand land on his thigh and squeeze. “Um... could you concentrate on driving please.”

He laughed. “You Brits. Always so obsessed with safety and driving rules!” he patted the Doctor’s knee but let him alone after that for a while.

They drove for hours. The man was not much of a conversationalist, for which the Doctor was grateful. He fell into a doze, the effort of escaping the train and tumbling down the side of wooded hill slope exhausting him more than it should, his inability to touch reserves of artron energy from the TARDIS was beginning to badly affect him. He was woken up by the truck pulling into what looked like a lorry park off a motorway service station. It was dark.

“Where are we?”

“About 35 kilometres from Warsaw. It’s my tachograph,” the trucker said, hitting the dial on his dashboard. “No more driving for me ’til morning. Bed at the back of the cab though. Tight squeeze, but a skinny thing like you’ll fit nicely.”

“What?” the Doctor’s hand slid down the side of the seat and unclipped his seatbelt. The man grabbed his wrist,

“You agreed to pay sweetheart.”

“What? I’ve got money...”

“I can’t take money from a hitchhiker. I’ll lose my job. But I’m off shift now and I’ll take payment in kind. A ride for a ride.”

“What? No!” the Doctor prized the man’s fingers from his wrist and tried to open the cab door.

“Hey bitch!” the man grabbed him again, holding him tightly by the upper arm. “You said yes when I picked you up. Do you think it was a coincidence? I picked you up on my app. I said you had to pay for the ride and you said yes. So pay up.”

“What?” the Doctor struggled, considering punching and kicking, but changed his mind when the driver climbed on top of him and pushed a knee between his legs and pinned his shoulder back into the seat, pressing against him with incredible strength and weight,

“If you mean, what do I want, the answer is a fuck.”

The Doctor shook his head. “Are you sure? I mean, my hands are good. My mouth. I can do amazing things with my mouth. Sure you don’t want me to go down on you?”

“Sounds good. Maybe later. All the time you’ve been sitting there I’m been thinking about your cute arse. Take off your clothes and climb in the back.”

“But... but... Look, can’t I give you a blowjob? Truth is, I’m recovering from being raped and...”

“Not my problem pretty. I’ll be gentle then. Okay?”

“I don’t have any lube,” the Doctor finally tried.

“Bit of a rubbish whore, aren’t you? No worries. I’ve got some.”

“Um...” The Doctor bit his lip. He nodded slowly, his eyes wide in terror.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: the Doctor is forced to prostitute himself once more


	14. Thugs, Bikers, and something nasty in the air

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings below

After the driver finally went to sleep, the Doctor eased himself out of the bed at the back of the cab and wriggled hurriedly into his clothes and, throwing down his bag first, jumped out of the truck and began walking in what he hoped was the exit to the lorry park. As he walked he pulled out the rabbit from his inside pocket and a banana and some lemon bon bons from another. He was planning to get back to the motorway and hitch again. Regrettably, he realised, even if it meant having to prostitute himself. He felt too battered and sore from his tumble down the mountain to try to walk all those kilometres.

“Disgusting man. Well, no, I suppose, he thinks it’s in his rights. Is it Fizzy? Shouldn’t he pay me money? Isn’t he breaking the rules or something?”

“We’re much nearer Warsaw, so that’s good,” the Doctor made Fizzy say in a squeaky voice. “Give me a sweetie!”

“Banana first,” the Doctor told his toy.

“No! Hate bananas! Want a carrot!”

“Don’t be a naughty rabbit! I don’t have any carrots!” He walked in silence for a while, hugging his rabbit tightly while he ate his banana and sweets. “I suppose it was interesting. Never been fucked by a man wearing a condom before. Strange feeling. Why do humans do it? Bet you rabbits don’t...”

“Is there a nasty racist comment to rabbits in that sentence Doctor? I’m a Gallifreyan rabbit, but if Earth rabbits were sentient they would use them too, family planning is a sign of a Level 4 and above society. Didn’t you learn anything at the Academy?”

“I’m sure human men can’t get pregnant Fizzallundra. And you are supposed to teach Time Tots science, you shouldn’t know such things!”

“Disease prevention,” he made Fizzy reply. “And I say what you want me to Doctor. Like, you are fine!”

“I’m talking to my toy rabbit – who is answering back! - so I’m pretty sure I’m not fine! Just a tiny bit not...” the Doctor tailed off his lonely monologue as he heard laughter, the sound of a group of young human men laughing. He looked up. 

“Bat shit crazy pretty boat boy, not fine at all!”

“No joy boy, you are not fine at all!”

There were seven of them, ranging from about fifteen to twenty, hanging about under the yellow sodium light at the edge of the car park. They had been smoking cannabis; the smell of hydroponics home grown weed was strong in the air, as was cheap larger and even cheaper, pungent, deodorant, and human male sweat. Aggression, testosterone, and desperate hatred radiated off them, along with despair and sleeplessness. The Doctor hugged his rabbit tightly.

“Um. Hello. I’m the Doctor. And this is Fizzallundra. Can I help you young men in anyway?”

The man laughed harder and surrounded him.

“Did the boat boy or joy boy bit drive you crazy?”

“Or maybe you were always a crazy Brit!”

“Got any money?”

The Doctor hugged his rabbit and his bag and took a step backwards, bumping into one of the young men, who had come behind him.

“Got any drugs?”

The Doctor shook his head. “Sounds like you don’t need anymore,” he spat out, regretting it as the boy in front of him punched him in the face. The one behind grabbed him and dragged him to the floor...

The Doctor lost track of time as he was kicked by several of the young men. His coat and jacket were pulled off and pockets rifled through, as was his bag, strewing clothes and food across the tarmac and the grass bank behind the street lamp. The toy rabbit was flung into a muddy puddle, its fluffy tail ripped off.

Eventually they ran off, laughing. The sky was beginning to lighten slightly, as dawn broke the other side of the pumice clouds, going from black to deep purple. The Doctor sat up in the ice, mud, and slush, shivering, hugging his knees and trying not to cry. He saw his rabbit and rushed over to the puddle.

“Oh sweetheart, the Doctor will make you better.” He cast around for her tail and found it, and shoved it into his pocket, and hugged her. He looked about further, and saw all the clothing he had bought in Belgium spread about, most of it sopping wet and muddy. He ached everywhere. He had instinctively curled into a ball and covered his head with his arms, so mostly he was bruised on his legs and arms, and his back ached, but concentrating on slowing his panic and fear down he managed to do a quick inventory, and there was no internal damage, despite the booted kicks to his lower back. So this time lucky unlike the first day of this nightmare, where he had broken bones and a damaged kidney. He still hurt like hell though. And was so exhausted. He sent a telepathic SOS to the TARDIS and whatever Time Lord it belonged to. It wasn’t something the Doctor would ever have considered doing before the Time War, and couldn’t since. But he was in a bad way. Perhaps whoever it was could just take him to his TARDIS in theirs, and then he could rescue Yu and...

Again he got the sniffy brush off from the TARDIS, as if, he felt, she was doing enough by kindly translating and her artron energy was for her and her Time Lord. The Time Lady, and he felt it was a she, closed her mind as if he was an irritation, rather like a fly she would love to squat. CIA, the Doctor decided, as something was amiss with the timelines. Either an investigation or they were doing it themselves for some reason. If they were, he would track them down and stop them once he had his TARDIS. The CIA was a law unto itself and went too far...

CIA agents with their manipulations? He wasn’t in his universe, was he? Was it his right to interfere? How were there Time Lords in any other universe? Rassilon had dealt with them...?

Later Doctor!

The Doctor began to crawl painfully over the icy tarmac and muddy, slushy, grass embankment, pushing his dirty, wet, clothes back into his holdall, doing an inventory. His biscuits were crumbs, not an item of clothing was clean or dry enough to wear, his teabags soggy and ruined, and worst of all, his cash and money cards were all stolen, as was his fake Euro IDs. He felt into the lining and retrieved the passport the Master had told him to use only once he got to the border. Still, it wasn’t far to Warsaw and then the train to Moscow...

Oh no! He had no money and no tickets and no Euro ID.

That would mean he would have to...

The Doctor took a gasp as he realised, his body shuddering in shock and fear.

Perhaps he could just find the nearest Chinese Consulate and give in. It wasn’t his universe and the CIA were here and what did it matter if he gave them faster than light equations?

“Of course it matters Doctor!” he snapped at himself.

“You can’t do that, Doctor,” he made Fizzallundra say faintly, as if she were in great pain. “You must go on!”

“I will buy needle and thread with the first money I earn, and mend you,” the Doctor promised, “and food, and find a laundrette as I look like a tramp right now...” he tailed off again as he heard the roar of a large motorbike pull up. A man in leathers was climbing off. The Doctor put his head down and hurriedly carried on picking up and packing his wet, muddy, belongings.

“Hey!”

The Doctor carried on repacking his belongings, his rabbit tucked under one arm, muttering to himself.

“Hey there! Are you okay? Did you get attacked? Boys from the town run wild around here.”

“Do they indeed?” the Doctor snapped, sitting up on his heels, wincing in pain.

“Yeah. Police can’t do anything. They come off the estates and refugee camps. Wild and crazy as fuck. Did they take anything?”

“All my money. My train tickets. They... they...” the Doctor broke off, looking at the gap where his rabbit’s tail had been ripped off.

“Good job I’m here to offer you a job then, in’it?”

The Doctor looked up at the biker, and he was a Biker with a capital B, speaking Polish with a Southern English accent, the logo of his Chapter on the back of his fringed leather jacket. “What job?” he asked.

“That is a tramp stamp on your wrist, right? I thought I’d have to go further to find a joy boy, but then you pinged. Upgraded my app for boys especially!”

The biker waved his phone at the Doctor, who saw two pictures of himself, one in the tux, presumably ripped from the CCTV from the Ball, and another, of him naked on an armchair, and spreading his legs invitingly, that he had absolutely no recollection of posing for. Just as well, as he would have refused point blank. But the Chinese had kept him sedated for the best part of three or four whole days, so they must have taken it then. It gave stats, height, eye colour, etc, and stated clearly that he took, gave head and hand jobs, and was prepared for sub kink for extra. It was terrifying, as the Doctor had not thought about what was happening when the chip pinged on a person’s phone, just that it said a male prostitute was in the area. It even said he was known as the Doctor!

The Doctor shuddered and started to pull on his wet, dirty, jacket and coat. “I didn’t consent to the chip, you know?”

“Probably not, lots say that, even if they did. Look, I get you’re scared, being mugged and beaten up by those freaks. But you need to make money to buy your train ticket you said they took. Look mate; there’ll probably be little for you to do, promise. There’s a big wedding at the weekend, and we’re organising a massive stag party for the Chapter. My mate suddenly said we ought to be equal opportunity, we’ve got three girls plus a stripper, but he reckoned we ought to offer a boy too.”

The Doctor narrowed his eyes and put the rabbit back into his pocket. It vanished as if nothing was in the pocket at all. The Doctor ignored the biker’s curious look and demanded, “How much?”

“We’re paying the girls a thousand each for the night, but there’s no limit on how many they... serve, like. How does one thousand five hundred sound? Same rules.”

“Um...” the Doctor bit his lip. He needed money, but a party, full of bikers...

“Tell you want, I’ll get that suit and coat dry cleaned, free and gratis, for extra, and come back now, and you can have a shower, and use our washer and dryer for your clothes, and that rabbit too, and I’ll find you some cotton and a needle and you can sew its tail back on. Did you find the tail? I’ll help you look now...” the biker squatted down next to the Doctor and began to look on the ground.

“I found it. It’s in my pocket. Can you feed me too?”

“Of course!” the biker bounced to his feet and held out his hand. The Doctor allowed himself to be helped to his feet. He took the offered helmet and put it on and gave his bag to be stowed in the pannier and climbed on the pillion. It was a classic Harley Davison, black, silver, and chrome, at least thirty years old, and well loved,

“Nice bike,” he said, meaning it. From his toy compass he could tell they were going in the right direction, towards Warsaw, too, once the biker revved them away, turning neatly and sliding down the slip way and onto the motorway. The Doctor grabbed onto the man’s waist as the bike accelerated fast. This was the way to travel! He loved motorbikes.

*

A few hours later the Doctor emerged from his incredibly long soak in the bath. He had showered when he arrived, then sat in a bathrobe while the biker who had picked him up, plus two more, had chatted to him while baking party foods and putting up streamers around the house. The man who had picked him up, called Tiger, had put his clothes in the washing machine and then took off on his bike with the Doctor’s suit and coat, making him feel very vulnerable and scared. Another of the men organizing the bash, the house owner in fact, called Mario, had reassured him everything was fine,

“You’ll get your stuff clean tomorrow. Sorry, but suits might be your thing, but they’re not really gonna appeal to a gay biker, right? Tiger said you looked sort of lost, like you’d only had one sugar daddy before, in those decent clothes. But you know, bikers ain’t into that crap. He’s gone to get you some jeans and a top, yeah, and some boots.”

“Oh.”

Mario looked like his namesake, the Doctor thought, short, and fat, with a huge moustache and a leather cap with chains. He bit his tongue so he wasn’t accidentally cheeky enough to ask him if he was a plumber. Not knowing what was going on in the Doctor’s irreverently distracting mind, Mario gave the Doctor a huge breakfast of sausage, eggs, cheese and some more of the heavy, grey, Eurocombine ration bread, this time baked in a traditional Polish cottage loaf shape rather than the baguette and rolls of Paris, Brussels, and Berlin.

After he ate, the Doctor washed Fizzallundra, dried her in the tumble dryer, and sewed on her tail, then retreated to the bathroom for a second very long soak in a bubble bath. He felt like he could just not get clean. He knew he was going to feel very dirty again by the morning, but he took what he could. Also, the hot water helped with the bruises and cuts, easing the aches and pains and speeding the recovery. Although, when he did emerge, there were still scratches and a bruise on his face, as well as two arms more black and blue than white with the bruising. He only got out when the biker who had hired him came to tell him he needed to get ready.

Tiger pointed to the master bedroom opposite. Downstairs the sound system was being set up, the moronic ‘one, two, one two,’ being shouted into the microphone. In the bedroom were four women, three were dressed in very short skirts and low cut tops, and the other, a short, very curvy young woman, in tracky bottoms and a hoody. She was rifling through her bag that was on the large king size bed, bringing out old style CDs, along with sequinned, sparkling, layers of clothes and a feather boa. The Doctor guessed she was the stripper. She turned to look at him with curious, cold, very pale blue cat-shaped eyes. The other women were huddled in a corner, sharing what looked like a joint.

Smelt like one too. The Doctor coughed and fanned his hand in front of his nose. The women glared at him, then turned their stare to Tiger, who had been so polite and kind to him.

“Alright ladies. This is the Doctor. He’s here same reason as you girls. Clothes on the bed Doc, alright babe? Get yours back in the morning, no worries.”

The Doctor looked at the clothes – tight black jeans, a tight long sleeved purple tee shirt and black biker boots with studs, along with a wide black silver studded leather belt to hold the jeans up.

“Was gonna get you a tank top, but then I saw the bruises.”

“Bruises on the face, too,” one of the women said, curiously. She was tall, thin, and blonde, that was, peroxide blonde. She was dressed in a tight black leather look mini dress that was cut low enough for her silicon-enlarged breasts to spill over the top. Tiger couldn’t keep his eyes from them. The Doctor carried on looking at the clothes he was supposed to put on. No different to the tux and dress shoes in Paris, he supposed. “How did that happen? You get jumped by one of the freaks?” the peroxide-silicon woman asked.

“He was mugged, but yeah, saw them running, they had the Mark on them,” Tiger replied.

“Always the same, them ones. It’s getting so dangerous. I’m getting myself to Warsaw, although I don’t have a licence to work there,” the stripper said, as she began to undress from her casual own clothes. Tiger’s eyes swivelled around to take in the stripper’s natural breasts.

“Piss off, no sampling the good ’til I dance,” she snapped good-naturedly, and then laughed.

“I’m going, I’m going. Get dressed and get downstairs with the others at eight, okay Doc.”

The Doctor stared. “No, don’t do that. Please. Not Doc, never Doc. It’s just the Doctor.”

“Weird name. Was you? A Doctor? Back in Britain. I’m Bethan, by the way,” the stripper said.

“Don’t be stupid!” snapped the peroxide blonde.

“Na,” said another of the tarts, “it’s right possible. The NHS shut down, made a lot of doctors unemployed. That and him being gay. They were rounding up all the gays back in ’21.You come on a boat then? I did, me and my family. My Dad is Polish, see, that’s how we got here. But he’s dead and...” she sniffed. “No worries.” The other two prostitutes hugged her.

“My Mum’s Polish, it’s how we got here too. Boat, too, like you. I was only fifteen. Got so sick crossing. Never been on a boat before, never been abroad. My Dad was in prison. Never heard from him in three years.”

“Might be alive though, not like he married a Paki or something like that...”

“They say they are eating each other in Britain now, since Iceland blew...”

The Doctor tried to tune the women out as he walked over to the pile of clothes he was expected to wear, but it was difficult. He pulled the jeans on, trying not to wince as the rough demin scratched across tender bruising.

Bethan brought out a bottle of wine from her bag, plus five plastic beakers. “Let’s get smashed,” she said, “toast pre Brexit Britain! Right, I’m Bethan, he’s the Doctor and...”

“I’m Brittany,” said the peroxide blonde.

“Karolina,” said the girl with the Polish mother.

“Paulina,” added the mostly silent girl.

The Doctor realised all four women came from the south of Britain. He looked at himself in his new outfit in the mirror. He didn’t look at all like himself. He left his hair to flop; he couldn’t be bothered with backcombing or gelling it up. However, he considered the black biker look and thought,

“Eyeliner,” he said aloud. “Black eyeliner.”

“What babe?” asked Brittany.

“I think this outfit needs a lot of black eyeliner. And I’m a scientist, by the way, not a medical doctor.”

“Okay. I was at college, gonna be a nanny or something. I was doing Childcare and Development,” said Brittany.

“Me too!” said Paulina happily.

“I was doing Dance and Drama,” said Bethan, “proper dance, not fucking stripping.”

“I was doing dance too. I was going to get a scholarship to South Korea, but no one will let a Brit in anywhere now, scared I’d out stay my visa. Besides, Korea is in a worse state than anywhere, right? All that radiation! Wouldn’t wanna go there no more. But back then; they had great dance schools... Then they started deporting all the Europeans and I had to come with Mum. They said I could stay, but no way!” Karolina said, shaking her head.

“Good job, coz the next year they were arresting you if you married someone not British and white and they were putting the kids in the camps. That’s when we managed to get to the coast and on a boat. Nineteen of us is a rowboat, the type you used to hire on holiday, yeah? Thought I was gonna die!” Brittany said.

Bethan had been pouring wine and starting handing them out. “Get that down you babes. Let’s look to the future yeah. We’re not dead and we ain’t in the Jungle.”

“I was in the Jungle, ooh, must be only ten days ago. Ten days! Eleven days since I woke up with this in me!” the Doctor waved the tattoo in front of the women.

“We’ve all got one of those tramp stamps babe. And a ad app chip. You do what you can to survive right?” Brittany said.

The Doctor nodded, that much was true. “Can anyone lend me some black eyeliner? I don’t know where Tiger put my bag. No thank you,” he said to the offered wine.

“Don’t like weed, don’t drink, what kind of tart are you? You need to be out of it to do a job like that, get down off your high horse, yeah,” Karolina snapped.

“I... I... how do you get through?” the Doctor asked, then thought about what she had just said. “Why this job?” the Doctor panicked.

“Man after man, init, all night. Dunno how many bikers are gay though. Not something you think of, is it, gay bikers? You might have it easy. Then again, there’s three of us and one of you, so...” Karolina replied, shrugging, taking the joint from Paulina and inhaling deeply. The Doctor coughed again, and the women laughed again, but this time more good-naturedly.

“If you want eyeliner, babe, you need foundation first, coz you are a mess. Let’s cover them bruises up, yeah.” Bethan sat on the bed next to her bag and pulled out a huge make-up case, so big the Doctor wondered how she had Gallifreyan technology in her bag. She opened it up and grabbed his wrist. He flinched.

“Easy babes, I’m just matching your skin tone, okay?”

The Doctor nodded and sat down.

“We’ll cover up all them scratches and bruises. And them freckles. You have loads.”

“Remember when freckles were so in?” Brittany said.

“Yeah, girls getting freckles tattooed and everything!” Paulina added.

“With slug eyebrows. That was so Brexit, yeah!”

The girls were getting a bit hysterical with their laughter, the Doctor wasn’t sure if was the weed and wine, or the thought of young British women with tattooed freckles and painted on thick slug like eyebrows. He let Bethan do his face, surprised how gently she applied the make-up.

“How do you get through?” he asked again quietly, after his make-up was done.

“I’m not a prozzie, but when I strip I pretend I’m on stage, proper stage, doing ballet. I never had the body for ballet, but I was doing proper musical theatre dancing, since I was a kid.”

“Yeah,” Brittany said, sitting down next to them, touching the Doctor gently on the arm, “yeah, you do that, you send your mind somewhere else, out of your body, okay?”

The Doctor nodded. He could do this. He needed to get money to cross the border and on to China and to rescue the TARDIS and Yu. He would lie back and think of... not Gallifrey, as that was only more pain! But something! Anything! He could survive. He would have to.

He stood up and looked at himself in the full-length mirror at the end of the bed. The thick eyeliner certainly went with the tight black jeans and purple top, to say nothing of the studded leather belt and boots. Whoever it was in the mirror, it wasn’t the Doctor. His flat hair flopped into one eye, and he flicked it back with a toss of his head. He hoped so hard it hurt that one thousand, five hundred, Euros would not only get him to Moscow, but onto the Trans-Siberian Express and from Beijing to Xichang and his TARDIS. But he doubted it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: the Doctor is mugged and beaten up.  
> TW: he also over hears some use of racist language, spoken with no hate, only in ignorance.


	15. Getting though with the mind elsewhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor distracts himself with figuring out where he is and how he actually got there, with a little help...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings below

I can do this. You are fine Doctor. No one is interested anyway.

Bethan can dance. She is wasted stripping. But with so many refugees and the Euro economy tanking I suppose the Europeans get the jobs first. It took a lot of campaigning to get Gallifrey to take any refugees, in the Time War or before, before...

Spoke too soon.

Oh! The groom! But he went off with Paulina...

Can do this. I can!

The ceiling needs painting. There’s a hole. The spider just disappeared. No, there it is, the other side of the light. That hole in the ceiling is a tunnel. Like a wormhole, one end opening in one space-time, reappearing in another...

OW!!!

In another universe! Oh Doctor! That’s brilliant! Brilliantly brilliant! The wormhole spins on an axis in the Void, opening and closing randomly in two universes...

But the Void is closed.

Is a trans-dimensional wormhole even possible?

Is it? Just because the Time Lords never discovered something. After all, there are Time Lords here. I’m here, somewhere, I suppose, but not me... how did Rassilon miss this one?

~Shrouded~

Who said that?

~me. The Doctor. Shrouded. Perhaps this Rassilon hid this universe’s Gallifrey. Perhaps he had the same idea and was beaten to it?~

Am I talking to myself? I seem to be. I mean, I always talk to myself, but you sound different. I mean, feel different. I recognise you though. Am I going mad?

Ow!

What is it with these rubber things?

~Makes it easier not to tell how cold you are to them though. So useful. Humans are so hot~

They burn sometimes.

~Sometimes it’s worth it~

Jamie! ~Jamie!~

And Yu. Commander Chan Yu. He didn’t betray me. He had better be alive. I am going to find him as soon as I find the TARDIS and rescue him. And his Mother. But he said he had a fiancée...?

~Beard. Probably~

Yu is so gentle. And always asks, always, whatever he does, he never assumes, never takes, never...

Done. It’s over. What do I do now? Go back and look available. How do they do this, day in, day out? Sex and humans are strange.

Bethan has gone. It’s getting so noisy.

What?

What?

What?

Brothers?

No. Twins!!!

Good job I’m ambidextrous then...

Twin universes, joined by a rotating wormhole. Is that possible? How is it stable? How did it survive before, when the Daleks, when Davros, no, when Dalek Caan...? 

~Daleks?~

If you are me, you know what I know, you were there Doctor!

~of course~

And what is it with that voice? Sort of Scottish. I know I recognise it!

~a good voice. You could have a similar one if you chose, instead of your mock Shobogan one~

~don’t distract yourself Doctor. Twin universes...?~

That’s what I’m doing, isn’t it, distracting myself, my mind fracturing, literally fracturing, as I’m talking to a splinter, a former persona, coz that’s who you are, isn’t it? Mind you, I’ve been talking to my toy rabbit and she has been talking back to me...

Done. Oh now you. Thought so Mario, thought you’d be after me come the party...

Against the wall! Really? I hurt so much everywhere. And I’m sure I’m missing something about the hooligans who beat me up and robbed me, something on them, something everyone said about them, something familiar...

~it will come to you Doctor~

Ow! Ow! Ow!

~distraction Doctor~

Yu just picked up the farming tool and turned it into a quarterstaff and, flipped over it, smashed the Dalek’s eyestalk off, ducked under the gun with a roll and pushed it off the terrace and it plunged down into the rice paddies below. I kept taking him to China’s past, to show him I was trying. One Dalek lost in ninth century China. Never did find out how it got there, buried in the mud. It blew up as it sank back into the mud. Better a lost harvest than a lost village. Although they had lost so many people before we got there. It was using them as slaves, you know. Well, of course you know.

~of course I do~

It was like Ace. He was like Ace. But amazing. I mean, Kung Fu and circus skills. And so brilliant, such a brilliant mind... not that I’m doing down Ace, Ace was a sixteen year old girl from London and she beat up a Dalek or two with a baseball bat and blew off their eyestalks with a rocket launcher...

~ah. My Ace~

Our Ace. My Ace. Your Ace. Yes. Your Ace.

I said to Yu, ‘I could kiss you,’ and he replied, ‘Not now, but I’m holding you to that!’

I kissed him by the console, gently. He then took my face and kissed me hard, pushing me into the console. But everything he did was ‘Can I?’, ‘May I’, ‘Is it alright if I?’...

Same body, new body, I’d just regenerated, a born again virgin, and he was so so gentle...

Well, not quite, as there had been Al’nama’du. How could I forget him? He was so sweet and gentle, lovely...

Not like this Mario!

No, I won’t drink. The girls look so out of it now, they can barely stand. The smell of cannabis and alcohol and sweat is unbearable... and the noise. What is that called? Thrash metal?

Oh? Okay. Fine.

Wait!

So rude! Isn’t that rude Doctor? If you give head, you are in control. You don’t just fuck a person’s throat...

~Respiratory by-pass Doctor~

I’m dying!

~no~

~trans-dimensional wormhole took Yu into your universe?~

MY UNIVERSE!?!

~our universe. I mean ours~

Oh of course. I think I don’t trust you Doctor!

I think I’m going to be sick!

Why are there always carrots? I’ve not had a carrot in days! Not since Anton’s cleaner’s stew!

I need a glass of water...

Not again. I’m not giving head again.

No choice.

Oh fine. He’s quite sweet. This is better. So much better with a little bit of control.

Suppose I’ll have to swallow though. So much salt in a human...

I hope Tiger is true to his word and gives me my suit and coat back. I don’t want to travel in this. I want my shoes. He hid my Converses...

Well, all borrowed from the Master, really. The Chinese have all my clothes. I want that coat back. Janice Joplin gave me that coat.

~Master!?!~

You are me, right? Doctor? You manipulative, scheming...?

Ow ow ow! You don’t just grab someone by the arm like that! Especially when he has bruises.

All my clothes off? On my knees?

This is going to hurt...

~Doctor! Focus!~

He’s inhumanly big! What is it with humans from this era? Turning themselves plastic and metal...

~only for vanity’s sake. Not like on Mondas~

~focus Doctor~

Ow ow ow! On what?

~rotating axis of a trans-dimensional wormhole, it took Yu through to you – us – and then, how did you get him back to his own universe?~

Void has closed. Rose is lost...

Rose!

Rose.

Rose...

I’m going to scream! Bite your fist Doctor. Oh!

~FOCUS~

I just told the TARDIS to take Yu home. Remember when Susan left us and we ended up on Venus? Trikhobu’s calculations, following the person’s DNA and artron trail. We made it back for her and David’s wedding. We gave her away. I assume the TARDIS used the formulae... but if the Void was closed apart from the Wormhole... 

We didn’t come through the wormhole! I know I stormed off and hid in the Cloister, but I still would have known...

How? How did I bring Yu back to his own universe?

Adric! ~Adric!~

His formula worked!!!! Adric’s block- transfer calculations. Oh, the boy was always so brilliant...

Oh. Adric. Poor Adric. He never knew how brilliant...

~So the CVEs are open?~

The CVEs! That’s brilliant! Oh so brilliant! The CVEs... if I find the one to Rose...

Ow! I’ve bit myself so hard I’m bleeding. He’s so big and so rough and going so deep I can’t deal with this. I can’t I can’t I can’t...

~sleep Doctor. Sleep now~

*

A woman with long, dark brown, loose hair dressed in an overlarge tee shirt stands in the doorway of a balcony. A man is standing, his head bowed, his face shielded by the rim of his white fedora, tears splashing from the concealed cheeks onto his hands, his fingers gripped tightly on the railing at the edge of the balcony. He is covered with a rim of frost.

“You been standing there all night Professor?” the woman asks.

“”Yes.” He turns to look at her, his face wet with many tears. “Contact was made,” he adds coldly. If he didn’t make his voice cold he would weep and shake.

“Need a hug Professor,” the woman asks.

The man nods, and releases the rail and turns to her, letting the slightly taller woman hold him tightly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, yes it is again :)
> 
>  
> 
> TW: the Doctor’s inner monologue to himself alludes to what is happening to his body at the party.   
> TW: he grieves for Adric and misses Rose


	16. Yu and the TARDIS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meanwhile, in China...

The door was unlocked and slammed open with a clang, waking Yu from his fitful sleep. A bucket of cold water was thrown over him and he was yelled at to wash, dragged bodily out of the cell and into a shower block a floor above. He was then given a razor and told to shave, head as well. It was such a relief to be clean, as for shaving his hair off again; it dealt with those biting visitors he’d picked up in the cell. An grey jumpsuit was thrown at him, and he pulled it on to the cold-eyed glare of two soldiers with guns. They shackled his ankles again, and handcuffed him behind his back and the three of them marched to the lift and up. He was pushed out into a lobby area, the sun hurt his eyes, he had been so long locked in the cell, moved only to another concrete underground room for the interrogations and torture. Two men in suits, one a black western style carrying a laptop and clipboard, the other, in charge, in an old fashioned Revolutionary guard one in grey.

Together, all four walked across the lobby and into another, more comfortable and clean, lift, and rose quickly to the roof. Another helicopter was waiting. Where now, thought Yu, knowing asking anything was useless, it would only earn another rifle butt in the face. No one took off his handcuffs, but he was strapped in and ear protectors placed on his head before the chopper rose noisily and jerkily into the air, banking above the Space Services Admin building and turning and to head off over Beijing and out to the countryside. The direction it took led Yu to guess they were heading for Base 27, many hours away, even by chopper. It was going to be an uncomfortable flight.

He had no one but himself to blame, though, did he? He insisted the Doctor bring him home, bring him to share all he had found, all he had seen, all he had discovered, how he could build them faster than light, or get close to it, certainly improve on his own gravity bounce/slingshot technique for getting missions to Mars a lot faster.

He had been so furious when he realised that the Doctor had been deceiving him, pretending not to control the TARDIS, to keep him with him. But the Doctor knew, didn’t he, he knew what would happen? Knew that the Chinese would want him for his secrets.

But if that was the case, why did the Doctor walk into their trap? Why didn’t he warn Yu? How could he allow what they did happen? How could he...?

Unless he miscalculated, assumed they would torture the both of them, threaten his companion, reveal their secrets...

But why did the Doctor need the government, agency, and companies, secrets? It was obvious what they wanted, to succeed the race to the Moon, Mars, and beyond, to the rest of solar system, to all the potential resources waiting to be found and mined; to the glory of controlling the system. From what the Doctor said once or twice, humans were meant to be more collaborative, and the British were the first on Mars, sponsored by ESA, Russia, and NASA. Well, that was a joke, ESA lost so many resources, land, and personal post Brexit, even though ESA wasn’t part of the EU and never had been. But the rampant Europhobia and xenophobia that had ravished that once beacon of light, an inspiration and an aim, a place of refuge and safety from torture and execution. Democratic rights activists for decades had almost deified the British and their post Second World War history, despite the dark days of the British Empire. They had risen above what they had been and welcomed the world and their people had been the freest in the world. The progressive dissidents in China had almost lost hope that year. As for the following ones, the world had looked on in horror. Apart from the tyrants and dictators, their glee had been dreadful in their justification. See the Mother of so-called democracy and freedom fall harder than America, we are in our right after all, the hypocrites have been exposed for the liars they always were.

As for the crashed economy and the abandoned space programme in the States, that was beyond imagining. Russia, well they had their own motives and were racing China and India for the solar system. Collaboration seemed like a dream, an impossible dream.

The Doctor had seemed distracted when they arrived. Was history wrong? How could he tell? How could he put it right if it were?

Where was he? Was he safe?

Why had he insisted the Doctor bring him home? Why! Yes, he had been hurt, but he refused to talk about the Doctor’s reasons, felt tricked and trapped and used. All he had done was shout at the Doctor. Shouted and intimidated and hit. Well, slapped. Asserted some authority over the Doctor, over the Time Lord, the On-Coming Storm.

He’d slapped his boyfriend and screamed in his face and the Doctor had finally capitulated without another word.

At the time all he could do was feel relieved. He had grown to love the Doctor, and it was hard to leave him, but he had loved his country and missed his mother so much. Now look, he hated his country, and they hated him with a torturous vengeance. And he had no idea where his mother was. There had been hints to house arrest and veiled threats made if he failed to cooperate, but he had no idea how true it was. He was terrified for her safety, more so that the Doctor, who, despite that awful video he had been shown, could look after himself. Mostly. His mother was vulnerable. His fear for them both was a constant pain.

Yu opened his eyes and looked out of the window, they were banking again, over a stretch of plain, a wide river following below like a blue-green snake, and as the helicopter wheeled in the sky, the green, forested, mountains of Sichuan filled the horizon. Somewhere under those mountains lay a secret base, full of experiments in space travel and off –world settlement and recovered alien tech going back decades, some of the alien items going back centuries, millennia even. One of those pieces of alien tech, no doubt, was the TARDIS, and they were not having any luck unlocking her secrets. Which was why he was needed there, he supposed.

He would feign ignorance; he did, after all, with the Doctor.

Yu closed his eyes and remembered, remembered the first day back on Earth of his own time.

He had pushed through the trailing ivy obscuring the fluted pillars; so much of the TARDIS was so European, which was odd. As a child Yu had watched Star Trek on the Internet, when the government didn’t block You Tube, and he had loved the concept of Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. He’d been to enough planets that had also reminded him of traditional Chinese architectures and cultures. He would miss it, the travels, the adventures... He hadn’t planned for all this when he had calculated the concept of slingshot, the idea that he could bounce off the Earth’s gravity to cut the journey time to Mars by half, or more. He hadn’t planned to travel across half the universe; much less spend half a year scraping a living as a street entertainer and another half travelling with a screw up alien with a guilt complex and PTSD. However cute and sexy. He still hadn’t calculated where he went wrong and if he’d created the Wormhole or it was a natural phenomenon. The Doctor was plainly never going to tell him.

The Doctor was curled up on his side, lying on his thigh and propped up by an elbow, his other hand trailing patterns in the lily fronds in the pond. Yu could see orange and white koi carp dart about under the lily pads and caress the Doctor’s fingers.

“If you’ve come to tell me the TARDIS had materialized, no need. I know.” The Doctor did not turn or look up, kept his fingers trailing in the cool water.

“I came to apologise for being a arse. And for hitting you.”

“Slapping.”

“Yeah. Well.” Yu ran his fingers through his hair and coughed. “To apologise for slapping you. It was disrespectful and just plain mean. However infuriating you are.”

“I can be, can’t I?” the Doctor leapt to his feet. “I’m sorry too. I’m being selfish. I came to rescue you, not keep you. You have a life.”

“A life I chose, Doctor. Do you know how hard it was to get into the space programme from my background?”

The Doctor smiled a wide beam that didn’t reach his eyes. “I do.” He held his arms out for a hug and Yu stepped forward to embrace him,

“Sorry,” he mumbled into the Doctor’s bony shoulder, holding on to him tightly. He didn’t want to face that this might be the last time they hugged. He started to babble, to distract himself. He wanted this, he wanted to come home he reminded himself. “It seems to be a miserable day, outside, on Earth, black as night, thick with pollution and pissing with rain. Also, Beijing appears to have built a copy of the Eiffel Tower. I know I’ve been gone a year, but...” Yu shrugged, looked up, and grinned lamely. “Either than or...”

“I’m only a few thousand miles out. I’ll come up and relocate us.”

“Oh no, it’s not that I don’t trust you, just...”

The Doctor pulled away, hurt in his eyes, “Just you don’t trust me. With good reason. I wish I could ask you to stay...”

“Please, let’s not start again. I’ll find the Chinese Paris Consulate and...”

“Embassy, surely?”

“Not since the EuroCombine Acts, no. We need to get to Brussels for the Embassy.”

“Then let’s do that. Please. We can get a train. Ooh, I love trains, and the fast ones from this era, the maglevs...” the Doctor started spinning, arms stretched out.

Yu smiled. So cute. Sexy as fuck. But so dangerous. “Fine. Yes. Let’s.”

 

*

 

The Doctor didn’t seem to want to leave. He stood in the background, not raining on Yu’s welcome parade, admittedly, and said little, but he didn’t go. Not from the reception area, as they established at least who they both claimed to be, or the office of the junior diplomat, who telephoned for advice and confirmation, nor that of neither the military attaché nor finally the Ambassador’s office, where they FaceTimed the Space Programme and Yu’s identity and status was confirmed. The Doctor still stayed as they were ushered out of the office by another junior and offered tea while the Ambassador and the Brigadier continued to talk to Space Control.

The Ambassador joined them a while later, taking tea. After a while he turned to the Doctor and bowed his head,

“Honourable alien the Doctor, we thank for the assistance to our astronaut and the Chinese People. We are pleased to invite you to the Ball in Commander Chan’s honour this evening.”

The Doctor looked at Yu, nervously, but Yu nodded slightly, really not wanting to say goodbye at all now, so the Doctor had replied, bowing deeply, “It was an honour to be of assistance. It was lucky I picked up the distress signal and understood it. And I shall, of course, be honoured to attend the Ball.” Yu had been so impressed and proud of the Doctor’s knowledge of Chinese traditional manners and protocol.

“Good. I shall look forward to seeing you. Doctor. Commander.” The Ambassador nodded to Yu then stood and bowed to both of them, taking his leave.

Yu and the Doctor sipped their tea. The Doctor mumbled something about wanting biscuits to dunk, for something to say. Yu got up and wandered over to the window. The Embassy overlooked parkland and had a great view over to the New Parliament Buildings. He’d never been to Western Europe before. It was gloomier than all the TV shows he used to stream. Despite being promised to get him back earlier, they had arrived perfectly in Yu’s own timeline. The sky was oppressive with constant heavy black clouds and persistent rain and sleet and dust. He had been missing for one year, three weeks and four days.

“Excuse me Doctor,” and he turned on his heel and stormed out to find a phone.

It took him some time to locate the right person to give him clearance and access to a phone, so he only got to talk with his mother for ten precious minutes, knowing every single one of those minutes was being monitored and recorded somewhere. She had burst into tears and almost blacked out with relief. He could give her no assurances when he would be permitted to see her. But that he was alive was enough. She had been told a watered down version of what happened – apparently when his spacecraft fell into the Wormhole China had locked down, denied its existence, its very launch, despite the fact it had been televised in China and tracked by every super state. He promised to see her as soon as he was allowed. He doubted he ever would be now. 

Unless the Doctor rescued him, of course. He hadn’t quite given up all hope yet. And then they would have to meet. He would make the Doctor take his mother somewhere safe.

“Okay,” Yu had said after his brief call to his mother, coming back into the waiting room he’d left the Doctor some thirty minutes later. “They have given me a hotel room and credit.” Yu had waved a phone. “You’ve been treating me, now it’s my turn. Let’s go get you a tux. Me too. One more night, Doctor?” Yu tried so hard not to show how he was suddenly going to miss the Doctor like crazy, but his voice wobbled a little.

“How was the fiancée?” the Doctor replied though, with acid and bile.

“I spoke to my Mum, Doctor. My mother. And she’s fine now she knows I’m alive. She wasn’t, all the time we were travelling. You could have got me back.”

The Doctor tried to avoid Yu’s gaze. “Yeah, um... Shall we shop?”

 

*

At the reception, the Doctor, having had so many companions from the later twentieth century moaned in his silly but endearing way to Yu that he was so disappointed by the lack of Swiss hazelnut truffle chocolate and the opportunity to tell the ambassador he was spoiling them. The reference meant nothing to Yu, so he assumed it was British. Fortunately the Doctor behaved himself, shaking hands and replying politely to various Ambassadors and Chinese and ESA and UNIT officers while sipping the champagne. 

Later, however, the Doctor had allowed himself to grow drunk – Yu knew full well that, unlike humans, it was a choice with the Doctor. Had that meant he was bored, or anxious about their forthcoming separation? The Doctor hated goodbyes. But he had also had had so many companions, and Yu knew he also wasn’t the first to be a lover too. He’d like to give that Turlough a piece of his mind that was for certain. The Doctor was also still mourning Donna, all that she had been and lost, and someone called Rose, which probably explained his hanging on to Yu. Yu couldn’t begrudge him, so alone and lonely, the lonely god, lost in his own cause and effect, his own actions.

The Doctor had kept his distance though, obviously aware of the illegal and cultural disapproval of homosexuality. They had laughed a lot. The Embassy gave them a car and an escort when they left the Reception. At the time, drunk as they were, they had giggled all the way through the early morning streets of Brussels. When their guards had followed them into the hotel, Yu was not so happy. The cold air had already begun to sober him up a little.

“Really. We’re fine,” he insisted in the lobby, and again in the lift, as the agent insisted on the soldiers and him escorting them all the way. 

The Doctor meanwhile, had far from sobered up. He was growing more and more unsteady on his feet, his long, skinny, legs wobbling like a newborn Bambi, his voice slurred and ridiculous.

In the room, the Doctor went straight to the balcony and opened the windows for fresh air. “I feel kind of woozy Yu, sorry, but...” he mumbled as he fell. Yu had caught him in his arms and the Doctor leant into him, swaying. “This is nice. Shall we dance? I wish I’d taken you dancing now... I do feel strange. Yu... Yu... don’t... leave... me...”

Every word and touch was like a knife in the guts, a stone on the heart. Why did he insist on leaving him? Why? 

“Doctor...” he had begun softly.

Suddenly the sinister escort revealed its true colours, and three of the men burst into the hotel room menacingly. Yu pushed the Doctor’s fainting form behind him and shouted, “Hey! Who are you? Get out of this room...!” and fought for all he had to protect them both.

He had failed. 

And now here he was.

A secret hatchway slip open in a flat terrace on the mountain and the chopper began its descent into Base 27.


	17. Syria in Poland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor gets stuck again on his journey, this time in Poland

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings below

The Doctor awoke to the bright sunshine pouring through the gaps in the window shutters, to something tickling his nose. He sneezed and sat up. He ached everywhere, and his nose was itchy. He rubbed at it as he took in his surroundings. He was in the master bedroom, in the king-size bed he’d been on when that man... when that... when he must have passed out. He was naked, but covered by a large quilt. He was in-between two of the women, two of the other prostitutes, he supposed. For a moment he had forgotten what he had been marked and branded. It had been Paulina’s hair, which had been tickling his nose. She was flat out on her back, snoring gently, her arms flailed above her head, her left wrist showing the small black rose tattoo he also sported, her dark hair fanned out over the pillow, and previously over his head. Karolina was asleep the other side of him, curled up tightly, sucking her thumb, her back to him. Both women were in their underwear. At the end of the bed Brittany was curled up, wrapped in a blanket, also sound asleep. It was early, all the Doctor could hear were the singing of birds, the splash of light rain on the windows, and the breeze disturbing the branches of the trees in the front garden below the bedroom.

He looked about the room, half-lit and glowing in the dark sunlight. How could he get up without disturbing the women? Where were his clothes? His instinct was to run, but he had put himself through that hell last night to obtain currency so he could replace his train tickets.

He slowly brought his knees up to his chest and slid his legs and torso out of the bed covers and stood slowly, standing by the bed head, between the two women’s heads. He stepped carefully over Paulina and onto the chest of drawers beside the bed, then jumped down, landing softly, like a cat, onto the fluffy bedside rug.

 

*

 

Tiger interrupted his bath, walking in without knocking. The Doctor quickly covered his modesty with his hands, an annoyed shriek escaping his mouth.

“No worries Doctor,” Tiger laughed. “I heard someone get up. Thought it might be you, the amount the girls were knocking back I’d guess they’ll be out ’til tonight. I have your suit and coat back, all clean and pressed, along with your bag with everything else.” As he spoke Tiger hung the suit and coat, in plastic wrap, on the back of the door, and placed the bag onto the toilet seat. “Come to the kitchen when you’ve finished. I’ll pay you, give you breakfast too if you’re up to it.”

“Thank you. Breakfast would be nice.” The Doctor forced a beam. He’d need the fuel, as the thugs who had beaten him up had ruined all his packed food, spreading it out of his bag and into the mud and rain and sleet.

 

*

 

Tiger directed him out of the village and to a main road where he could catch a bus to town and then get a coach to Warsaw and continue his journey, picking up the sleeper to Moscow that night. Thankfully, the probable CIA agent’s TARDIS continued to translate in her begrudging, sniffy way, for the Doctor had no experience of Polish as a language. He thought back to the last time he was here was in the twelfth century, back in his fifth incarnation. Or was it his sixth? He remembered Peri had unwanted attention from a baron. He’d had to challenge him to a duel to protect her honour.

Sounded more like his fifth persona, brute violence and then flee might have been a more practical and less honourable approach his sixth persona might have taken.

Now he couldn’t even defend his own honour.

Pathetic.

The greasy sleet fell from the sky, along with pumice dust and sulphur, turning the slushy grey path and road even more slippery and dirty. He pulled his borrowed black coat more tightly around him and shivered.

Eventually one, then two, then three, elderly women joined him at the bus stop, white skinned and Slavic eyed, they chatted to each other in Russian rather than Polish, all looking at him suspiciously after he wished them good morning in Polish. They moaned about the drop in the EuroZone pension and the decrease in the bread ration.

The bus finally arrived, a blue and gold liveried single decker. The young Polish driver greeted the woman with a few teasing comments and politely took the Doctor’s fare, telling him it was an hour and half to the bus station in the town centre. The women sat at the front, the Doctor walked to the very back. Over the next few stops it filled up with women with children, older children and teenagers, men in coveralls and high viz jackets and in suits, before pulling off the country road and speeding up on the motorway. The driver put on the radio, and people chatted or looked on their phones. A group of teenagers helped a girl finish her maths homework. Algebra. Two others joined the three Russian women and they continued to moan and bewail the state of the country and continent. They were all of the opinion they were better off under communism. The workingmen talked of football and then of politics. A couple of smartly dressed women talked, scandalously, of a ‘friend’ who had slept with their boss, then talked about another friend’s ‘assault’. Everyone else, silent as they were to the other humans, transmitted news and comedies and dramas, fluffy kitten memes, pointless quizzes and trivial gossip with loud minds, the Doctor too tired and struggling apart from his link to the TARDIS to block it all. The wifi also buzzed his brain, like a tickle above his central cortexes and at the base of his neck, over the brain stem.

The bus came off only a junction later, to drive on through a larger village. The school children and old women got off, and more adults bound for work climbed aboard. The driver seemed to know everyone. Two women in hijabs got on with the rest, and there was a ripple of disapproval from some of the Poles as they walked down the aisle to the back of the bus. The Doctor grinned at them to make up for the low level hostility, but they averted their eyes from his. They sat in front of the Doctor and chatted in Arabic, to the annoyance of the man sitting across the aisle from them. They talked about a sister’s fiancé and plans for the wedding – hardly anything to be paranoid about.

The town gave way to fields of ash and mud, fields that once would have grown wheat and barley, and meadows of sick, scrubby, grass sticking up through the slush, barely nourishing the skinny, bony, cows hopelessly plucking at the ground for something to eat. Two of the men got off and walked off towards a farmhouse. But what could they do, the Doctor wondered.

Soon they came to more houses, the outskirts of a town, the same small houses and apartment blocks, gardens and parks, shops and schools, the same Europe over, the same the Earth over. The colours of the brick and tile might change, as might the type of decoration, the language and the signage, but all the same, the Doctor could tell he was in the same continent as he was when he walked towards his first town in North France, after he had left the New Jungle, over a week ago now.

The houses grew smaller and more tightly packed, the apartment blocks larger and higher, the road more busy and wider. At a stop outside a parade of shops under a tower block a group of loud young men and boys jumped on the bus, refusing to pay. The driver refused to go on, and one youth grabbed him out of the driver’s cab seat and started to hit him. The Doctor looked, horrified, as most of the other passengers sank low in the seats, looking desperately down at phones or pointedly out of the windows.

He leapt to his feet.

“Stop!”

The group looked up the bus at him, and one started laughing, moving towards him, swinging a bicycle chain.

“What you gonna do then? Stop us?”

“If I have to,” the Doctor said coldly, walking up to the youth and staring him down. At the back of his mind he remembered what had happened to him at the service station a little over 24 hours ago, but how could he do otherwise, terrified as he was.

“Yeah, who and who’s army?”

“I’m the Doctor, and there are more of us on this bus than your gang,” he said, as the boy swung his chain, nearly missing an elderly man’s head and connecting with his already bruised face. The Doctor forced his face to remain impassive, swallowed the cry of pain, and looked back, both with anger and sadness. The youth went to swing again when one of the businessmen caught the chain.

“Piss off. There is more of us!” he said.

As if waiting for permission, all the men and two of the women stood up and moved towards the group surrounding the driver in the doorway of the bus. They dropped the man and turned and fled. One of the male passengers immediately dropped to the floor and tended to the driver, saying he was a nurse.

Once the gang had left the atmosphere of the bus changed and everyone started to cheer and applaud. “Thank you Doctor,” the businessman said quietly, “thank you for reminding us that we are not always powerless. But there is no reasoning with those with the Mark. Most drivers wouldn’t have stopped for them though.”

“Mark? That tattoo on their necks? What, is that a gang thing or what?”

“When the lads get the Mark they go crazy. I suppose it could be a tattoo, I always thought it was a side effect of the drugs they’re on.”

“Could be,” the Doctor agreed as a woman called to say that she had called the police but they had refused to come as the situation sounded like it was under control.

The driver, by this time, was back in his cab, and having been reassured he was fine, if shaken and a little bruised, continued to drive.

*

The bus station was dark and gloomy, built under a shopping precinct and multi-storey car parks. He found he had missed the coach to Warsaw by minutes and had an almost two hour wait. He saw another group of youths hanging about in a corner of the station, staring surly and yelling incomprehensible abuse to passers-by. They grabbed an elderly man’s tartan shopping trolley and upended it, kicking it into the bus lanes, before running off laughing. The Doctor rushed to the man, and so did two brown skinned young men, and together they gathered up his meagre groceries and sat him down on a bench.

“I’m telling everyone you ain’t all bad,” the man said shakily to the two young Syrians. “Blame the refugees, everyone does, but you are kind to an old man. You too,” he turned to the Doctor.

“Can I get you a cup of tea? Coffee? Something hot and sweet?” the Doctor asked gently, as the man was shaking quite badly.

“Can we leave you to look after him?” asked one of the young men, “Only we have to get to college.”

The Doctor nodded, and they set off at a jog towards the exit.

“They are lucky ones. Not many places for refugees and the like at college. Must be bright. Not like most, out of their heads they are, then there’s the crazy ones. Drug stops them sleeping, see. Go crazy, violent, have to feed their addiction.”

“What drug?” the Doctor asked. “I’m... er new here. Just passing through.”

“Some say it’s a new refined crack. Some say some crazy, accelerated, upper. Some even say it’s...” he dropped his voice to a whisper, “alien. But do you know what I think?”

“What?” asked the Doctor, the word alien itching his memory, that mark, that bright red circle on the neck, he was sure he had seen it before...

“Chinese and Russians, isn’t it? Softening us up for an invasion. That’s what I reckon.”

Why not? thought the Doctor. This was not right, history was not going according to recorded plan, and if Daleks and Ice Warriors could do such a thing, why not homo sapiens upon themselves. Sometimes he wondered why he liked the species so much, they were, whichever way you looked at it, the universe’s biggest monsters.

But not yet. And if they destroyed themselves through environmental disaster and dangerous drugs, warfare, and terrorism, they weren’t going to unify and make it out there, into the stars, to do harm or to do any good. And they did do a lot of good. Or will, or should.

“Coffee. I’ll have coffee,” the old man interrupted the Doctor’s thoughts, as he hadn’t answered. Perhaps he didn’t expect one. Perhaps everyone thought his idea crazy.

The Doctor went off to a coffee stand, and came back with a sweet coffee for the man, and a hot chocolate for himself. When he returned, the man’s bus had arrived, so he helped him on and then wandered off towards the exit, sipping his drink. The station had emptied considerably, with the rush hour ended and the early shoppers gone, the buses all left. And there was still an hour and a half to his coach. It couldn’t hurt to investigate this ‘mark’ and why so many young men and boys were going around in feral packs attacking people.

*

Above the bus station, the shopping precinct was a fairly standard human temple to capitalism, found throughout person-space from the twentieth century onwards, reminiscent but noisier and more aggressive than the market place of millennia before, since the first humans decided living together in large groups dependant on others for the farming, was a good idea. Brightly coloured frontages blasted out mindless pop, tempting in humans to buy their wares, from gadgets of the latest devise updates to the skimpiest of young women’s fashion, from books of all kinds to toys and stuffed bears, men’s clothes to respectable, staid, ones for old ladies, shops for bags, shops for make-up, shops for jewellery and accessories, toiletries with chemicals and toiletries proclaiming free of animal testing and about to save the planet with your bath; smells too assaulted the senses, along with the music and colours – coffee, chocolate, bread, and cakes, despite the rationing, these franchises could still sell and people still could buy. The stews and curries, sandwich and pie fillings, all looked a little forlorn and limited on choice, the bread greyish and stodgy if one looked closer. The Doctor smiled to himself though. He holstered his bag on his shoulder and whispered,

“Look Fizzy, I can buy you a ribbon if you like. Let’s restock our bag on tea and biscuits,” he whispered, and then grinned widely at the group of young women who were staring at him talking to his bag.

As he walked among the people, mostly seemingly intent on actual purchases rather than the leisure shopping of a more prosperous period of humanity, a group of young men ran through the concourse, yelling and pushing people out of the way, upending a buggy, the child’s vocal screams of shock indicating that she wasn’t that badly hurt, unlike the elderly woman who was knocked off her feet. They continued on their disruptive way, tipping up bins and smacking the security guard into the wall, laughing and jeering as they went. Every one of the young men had the same red circle on their neck. Most were brown skinned and many of the white Poles muttered racist comments under their breath. The Doctor wished he had it in him to get angry, but he could feel the fear, wave after wave, from all the human minds surrounding him. He was used to the TARDIS shielding him from the emotions and stray thoughts of those near him.

He gripped the bag tightly and ran after the gang, convinced that the mark they wore meant something important.

He emerged out of a fire exit onto a metal staircase. He looked up, hearing laughter. The gang were above him, on the roof, from the smell, smoking a mixture of heroin and cannabis with tobacco.

“Oi!” he yelled up at them.

All four faces looked down on him over the safety rail.

“What?” asked the eldest of the group, a boy of about twenty-five, a Polish lad among the Syrians, still wearing the tattered remains of a bank teller’s uniform suit.

“Look, it’s a shirt lifter with a tramp stamp. Piss off joy boy, we’re straight, see!” yelled another.

“Why do you wear that circle?” the Doctor demanded forcefully.

“What?” the third asked, peering over his friends, if that was what they were.

“Piss off!” threatened the first, taking a step towards the stairs.

The one who had uttered the homophobic phrases, however, touched his neck as if aware of it for the first time. “Dunno,” he said slowly, then shook his head. “Just fuck off fairy, or we’ll hurt you!”

The first was already on the stairs, running towards the Doctor. He let out a chilling, animalistic howl, and ran, the others responding and leaping over the rails to land on the first landing. The Doctor turned and fled.

The caught him at the bottom of the stairs and pushed him into the dark, wet, service alley beneath the precinct and behind the bus station, laying into him in a torrent of fists and feet and homophobic and racist (to Brexit British refugee) terms. The Doctor had no choice but to curl up into a tight ball and hold his arms over his head and hope it was over quickly.

After a few minutes the Doctor heard feet and shouts, more inhuman howls and many swear words in Polish, Russian, English, Arabic, and Turkish as more young men and boys poured into the alley and began to fight the first four, the ones who had attacked him. He grabbed his bag and swiftly moved out of the way. Fighting blocked both the fire escape and the exit to the alleyway, so he ducked under a large industrial bin and waited for it to be over, and hoped he was forgotten.

It seemed to be a turf war, but it was feral, rather than gang or drug related. The young men were out of control, their psyches burned, they were tired, agitated, confused, angry, and aggressive, but there was no reason, no competition, no loyalty or ties other than clinging to their packs in fear. The Doctor counted his breaths, trying to keep them calm and quiet, and concentrated on building psychic walls and shrank further under the large Grundy bins. He guessed he must have missed his bus to Warsaw by now, but they were two hourly up until ten at night, so he had time. Terrified and injured as he was, he had to find the reason. It was... alien. Of that he was sure. Even if the old man was right, and the Russians or the Chinese was using a drug to saturate European borders and weaken opposition, it was alien. Both had comprehensive space agencies, either could have come across a xeno drug.

In incomers were in greater numbers and younger, and chased the small group away. They slapped each other on the back and laughed and sauntered off after the first group, who had fled, licking their wounds.

After they had gone and the alley grew silent and empty, the Doctor remained under the bins. He realised he was frozen, not with fear as such, a little with concern and curiosity, but mostly with actual tense, locked, muscles, and with painful pins and needles. Plus he ached so much, from the beating, still from the pervious one, and what he had allowed his body to be put through the night before. He was really only bruised again, but badly, and on top of the beating he had been given two days ago, and the tumble down the mountainside the day before that, he was very uncomfortable, and had stiffened up, lying flat under the bins. As he tried to relax his muscles and rub life into burning limbs, he heard a door open behind him and the bins. A harsh aristocratic female voice barked an order,

“Daniel. Ahmed.”

Two young men came into the Doctor’s sights, a blond, white, young man and a brown skinned younger one with black hair. Both were dressed in smart jeans and white shirts with black boots, and they started to fly post some of the better lit walls. The woman came around the wall. She was slender and tall, in a blue leather cat suit with a thick utility belt and a thick wrist computer. Her long blonde hair was braided and hung over one shoulder. As the Doctor had just built such high mental shields, he wasn’t sure, but he would have bet his life on the fact she was the owner of the TARDIS that was begrudgingly translating for him. The CIA agent.

She turned and for a moment glared in the direction of his hiding place, as if she could sense him. She shuddered and slapped her arms.

“Daniel. Ahmed. Back,” she snapped, and walked back around the bins, without a second glance to the Doctor’s hidden self.

What was going on? Was she investigating the time infraction, the time gone awry? Was she investigating the use of xeno drugs on the men, making then violent and wild? He doubted she would be doing it.

Would she? Something itched at the back of his mind.

But the fact he had seen a Time Lady was worrying as much as it was amazing. He was in the wrong universe. He wasn’t sure he should reveal his existence to her, she would be a phenomenal sensitive, working for the CIA, and she might decide he had no right to exist in her universe. Particularly if she sensed the Time War about him. Or worse, take him home to mind probe, to prevent it happening in this universe.

He should be on his way to Warsaw and to Russia and onto China to find and rescue the TARDIS and Yu. This wasn’t his business. Time and British and European history was not his business. Alien chemical tech making young men run riot in a small town wasn’t his business.

But how could he leave it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: casual racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia is overheard by the Doctor.  
> TW: plenty of homophobic insults are directed at the Doctor  
> TW Violence. There is a violent scene – the Doctor comes to the rescue of the victim but is (mostly) unharmed himself. He is then later beaten up again during his investigation.
> 
>  
> 
> Personal note: today I post with heavy hearts, almost frozen with fear. I was writing this to chase the fears away, but with the Repeal Bill passing through its first reading, looking ever so much like the Enabling Act of 1933 in Germany, this nightmare dystopia seems a little more likely today :(


	18. Angels in the Bathroom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MAJOR TRIGGER WARNING BELOW  
> YOU MAY WISH TO CHOOSE TO SKIP THIS CHAPTER  
> YOU CAN PICK UP THE PLOT IN THE NEXT CHAPTER. OR MESSAGE ME AND I’LL GIVE YOU A SUMMARY AND THE NEW CHARACTERS WHO RESCUE HIM

Once the alley was empty again the Doctor painfully wriggled out from under the large Grundy bin and stood, stretching like a cat and swallowing a groan of pain, before he crossed the alley to look at the newly fly-posted sheets.

‘Princess Solutions,’ the first one proclaimed in bold, then listed its free support services to both refugees and unemployed Polish young men and boys. It offered lessons in Polish, in CV writing and interview skills, as well as boxing classes in the evening. “Channel the aggression,” it advised. The other posters were in English, Arabic, Turkish, and Farsi, saying basically the same thing, listing individual times and days for those language speakers. Its address and map was at the bottom. It appeared to be near the bus station and shopping precinct, a large residential block opposite had a row of retail outlets underneath, ‘Princess Solutions’ taking up two empty shop units in the middle.

The Doctor, curiosity piqued, certain this might be connected to the drug that was affected those poor youths and men, turning them into sleepless, half-crazed, violent, zombies, set off to investigate. Even if it weren’t, why would a Gallifreyan be helping dispossessed humans? He could only think of one, and he would love to see her, even from afar, even if she wasn’t really the same person, even if he was in the wrong universe. He tried the door the Time Lady and her human companions had come out of, but it was a locked fire door.

He started off toward the alley exit, planning to walk around the outside of the bus stations and precinct, planning to deal was the complex road system he remembered from when the bus came in, and check out this ‘Princess Solutions’. Once he came out of the alleyway and crossed two service roads he was grabbed from behind and pulled into the entrance of a burned out shop garage, a knife at his throat. He froze, instantly.

“Can I help you?” he managed to stumble out, the feel of the razor edge of the blade pressing and grating against his Adam’s apple. 

He could feel the warm breath of the person behind him, a heavy, laboured breathing, but he – or she – did not reply. His breath smelt rank, of someone who had neither cleaned their teeth nor eaten anything in a long while.

“I don’t really need a shave today. Thank you for the offer. I mean I may look like I do. I probably do. But it is something I tend to prefer to do myself.”

“Shut up!”

“You do speak then? I’d feel much more comfortable if you could release me. We could talk, face to face, you could tell me the problem...?”

“Money.”

“Ah. Sadly, I’ve already been robbed.”

“Money you bastard!” With that, his assailant pushed the Doctor roughly to his knees and grabbed his bag, ripping open the zip and pulling things out with desperation. He found all the money the Doctor earned at the party, and started rummaging through the clothes.

The Doctor struggled to his feet and took a step towards the boy, for boy he was, no more than fourteen, white skinned and ginger haired, with freckles, but he had the wild look of an addict, his eyes had bags, his cheeks were drawn, and his frame skin and bone. He hissed at the Doctor and waved the knife at him wildly.

“That’s all I have, I assure you.” The Doctor pulled out his pockets; sweet wrappers and an apple core tumbled out, along with some change and the Master’s laser scalpel.

The boy grabbed the change, greedily, and looked at the scalpel. “What’s that?” he snarled.

“A medical instrument. I’m a doctor, you see. The Doctor, in fact.”

“Where’s your phone?” the boy demanded.

“I have none, I’m sorry. No phone, no tablet, no device of any kind. I told you, I’ve already been mugged,” the Doctor spoke calmly, as if to a frightened animal.

“Money!” the child yelled wildly.

“You have all my money, it’s all I have. Please, if you need it so much, take it,” the Doctor pleaded.

“Drugs?” he screamed into the Doctor’s face.

“Ah, no, I know I said I was...” the Doctor began, but tailed off, mortified, as the child grabbed his stuffed rabbit and stuck the knife it, ripping her along her stomach and pulling out stuffing. “Don’t you dare!” the Doctor suddenly roared, striding to the boy, intending to grab the knife off him. Compassion for an emaciated, sick, child had prevented him acting before.

Seeing the sudden anger and violence in the Doctor’s eyes, the boy dropped the bag and rabbit and ran, taking the money, all the money the Doctor had prostituted himself for, degraded himself and suffered for, all the money to get him all the way to Beijing, with him.

The Doctor dropped to the floor and picked up Fizzallundra and hugged her, trying to push in the oil and mud soaked stuffing back into her. “It’s alright, sweetheart, I bought a needle and thread, remember, as well as a splendid ribbon. Hold on my dearest, you’ll look so lovely with your new ribbon...”

I’m absolutely crazy, the Doctor thought to himself.

Then the tears came and he began to shake. All that he had gone through at the party, all those men abusing and using his body for their pleasure, so he could get to the TARDIS and Yu, to get out of Europe. He was so near the border now.

 

*

 

Eventually the Doctor pulled himself together, tucked Fizzy into his inside jacket pocket, pushed his spare clothes and toiletries into the bag and stood, sighing deeply, knowing he had no choice but to look for the red light district here.

Interestingly, the child who had his hard earned money had not had the red circle on his throat and side of his head, but was obviously an addict of something. Crack, probably. Although he was somewhat silent for a crack addict. 

Heroin then. He had smelt of brown and weed as well as halitosis and sweat.

Poor child. The Doctor hoped he used some of his stolen money to feed himself and wash as well as feed his addiction. One and half thousand Euros, give or take, would keep him topped up for a while at least.

The Doctor scrubbed at his face and sighed again. Best find somewhere to wash and shave, and change his top. He remembered above the station and below the shopping mall there had been a half level of toilets and food and drink dispensing machines. He’d go there and sort himself out. If he was lucky it would be the local ‘cottage’ and his app would ping on someone’s phone there and then. He’d get enough for his coach fare to Warsaw and some food, and worry about more once he got to Warsaw. Maybe he could walk to the border and slip across somehow?

 

*

The Gents were clean and smart, with an elderly white British man as an attendant. He scowled at the Doctor’s tattoo and watched him intently, sucking his teeth and tutting loudly as the Doctor put his bag on a counter near the basins and started to root around for his razor, soap, and a clean shirt.

“Hope you ain’t gonna use all that then. Not here.”

“I, um...”

“Want to make yourself look nice for trade. Not here. If you don’t want a piss, on your bike sunshine. This is a respectable place, this is. More than my job’s worth...”

The Doctor smiled his most winning smile, one that melted hearts across several galaxies and millennia, one that convinced young girls to follow him and generals and presidents alike to trust him. “Please, go on. I’ve just been mugged. My shirt got torn. I just need to freshen up.” He tilted his head and twinkled his eyes, grinning all the more widely.

“Mugged you say. More than my job’s worth, like I say. Ain’t easy getting a job when you’re English, it ain’t...”

“No. I know that. I’m the Doctor, but look at me,” the Doctor waved his tattoo. “Government scientist, I was, top secret. Worked for the military too. Look at me now.”

The man sighed, “Yeah. Go on. But in the disabled loo at the end there, it’s got its own sink and that. Make sure you rinse it out. Then skeddale. I didn’t see you.”

The Doctor grinned widely and nodded his thanks.

While he was about his toilette he heard another cubicle door open and well-heeled footsteps cross to the sinks.

“Was this the young man I heard?” he heard whomever ask the attendant.

“Bloody pansies,” the attendant muttered. “Yeah, that’s him. But get out of here, this is a respectable place, more than my jobs worth it is...”

“No worries, I have a place to go,” the man said in a cut glass German accent.

 

*

 

As the Doctor exited the Gents and walked towards the stairs, the German gentleman accosted him,

“You are working, I take it?”

The Doctor smiled thinly, grabbing the back of his head. “Yeah. That’s me. Working boy I am. What did you want?”

The man smiled a cold, malicious smile. “Play,” he said. “All sorts. Your profile says you are willing for a few games.”

The Doctor suppressed a shudder as he remembered his ad page Tiger had showed him on his phone – stating he did sub kink for extra. He took a deep breath and looked the man in the eye. “Cost you. Depending what you want, but at least two thousand.”

The man nodded, and extended his hand. “Fine. Two thousand euros for the night. You do as you are told.”

The Doctor accepted his hand and shook it firmly. “Fine. Within limits. You do not actually harm me.”

“Of course not. Follow me.” 

In the lift to the man’s car on the top of the car part above the precinct and bus station, the Doctor told himself quietly, “I can do this. Games. I’m only a 150, he’s Koschei, I’m Theta. Just close your eyes and remember.”

 

*

 

It was gone midnight when the man’s chauffeur dropped the Doctor opposite the bus station, near the junction. The station itself was locked, as was the shopping precinct and bus station. The row of shops under the housing block the other side of the five-lane road was also very dark, except for the units belonging to ‘Princess Solutions’, they were lit from within by an eerie pale pink glow. A few of the flats above were also lit by yellow or white electric bulbs, shining through curtains, or blankets at the windows from the poorer residents. Once the classic Jag accelerated away, there was no traffic to speak of. Once in a while a taxi went past, sometimes the drivers slowed down to look at the Doctor, hoping he was a fare, or perhaps for rent, the Doctor couldn’t tell.

He walked across the road and path to the tower block and peered into one of the ‘Princess Solution’ windows. A reception area was dark, lit by the outside streetlights. It led to a door that led to what looked like a classroom or lecture room. A door the other side was open, where the pink light was coming from, from what looked like the open doorway of a Victorian antique wardrobe. The women in the blue cat suit was moving about, her back to the doors and frontage, holding a tray of test-tube in one hand, a resolution scanner in the other, a resolution scanner of colour, design, and reassuring chunky analogue design of a dozen chemistry labs, chemistry labs one would find in any Academy Chapter House or technical or medical facility on Gallifrey.

He pressed his nose to the glass. What was going on? Was she friendly? How would she feel about a Time Lord either way out of time or most likely from another dimension?

Hidden, his former persona had suggested. Hidden from their own Rassilon and his destruction of all other Gallifreys in the multiverse.

It made sense.

He was broadcasting, accidentally, it had been such a long time he’d been near any Time Lord but the Master. He was good at shielding from his bondmate, it was instinct, a survival instinct, and honed years before separation and divorce on Gallifrey, and centuries before either of them were renegades out in the universe.

He shut his mind down and stepped back into the shadows just as she turned around and reached out.

As the Doctor stepped backwards further he clashed against a firm human frame. He heard a deranged laugh in his ear as a hot, sweaty, hand covered his mouth and another knife was put to his throat.

“Hello pretty,” the man hissed in his ear. “Shall we have fun?”

The Doctor struggled, trying to bite the hand while twisting his body, but the knife bit into his flesh and he gasped in pain into the hand. He began to pant with fear, for the first time since he’d woken up in the brothel in Germany he felt real, uncontrolled, panic.

That panic increased as two more men stepped out of the shadows, they wore biker leathers and their faces were half-covered in bandanas tied over their noses and mouths.

“Very pretty,” snarled one, putting his hand on the Doctor’s chin. The man behind him laughed again.

The Doctor wondered if he could fake his death, stop his hearts for a while and switch on his respiratory by-pass; just appear to drop dead of fear in their grasp.

They began to drag him to a van, and he tried, he tried so hard to get control of his body via his central cortexes and ancillary nerve cluster between his hearts, but control requires a meditative state, not blind fear and panic...

 

*

 

... at some point he must have lost consciousness. Fainted, not a controlled fake death. Or perhaps his autonomic respiratory by-pass had come in play – his throat, inside and out, was red raw and screaming in pain. He was alone, back in the service alley he had hid under the bins, or one very like it. It was dawn, the sky was streaked a faint pink behind the pumice and dust and rain clouds. The same clouds were splattering him with an icy, dirty, greasy patina as it sleeted and drizzled both through the volcanic plumes. His coat was ripped off, his trousers around his ankles, his hands tied behind his back with his own tie.

That was something he could deal with immediately, and he set about relaxing and contracting the hand and wrist muscles until he managed to slip off the tie. As soon as he did, he wriggled into his pants and trousers and sat up to hug his knees, trying to keep the panic and tears at bay.

He was alone, it was over, and he was safe. He needed to know how injured he was.

He was bleeding anally, that much he knew. He felt faint and weak. He had at least three cracked lower ribs, but otherwise no more broken bones, and was a mass of bruising, particularly his neck and hips and thighs, more than he had already acquired since entering Poland. Even its very mountains had attacked him! He was sure in other times, other eras, Poland was a nice as anywhere or anywhen else. If – WHEN!!! – he rescued Yu and the TARDIS they must visit Poland, perhaps in the nineteenth century, and sample its people, culture, and food. His mugger and rapists had been British, anyway, and his abusive client German.

“You are distracting yourself Doctor!!!”

I really, really need somewhere safe for a healing coma right now.

“Yeah. But where?”

I don’t want to regenerate. That would be the worst death ever.

“Come on Doctor!” he muttered to himself. “Chin up. Don’t let the human bastards ground you down!”

But they have.

“Yes they have. They have, they have, they have...” the Doctor began to rock. He felt the blood trickle and puddle underneath him.

“I have to find the Chinese Embassy when they open. Or Consulate. Or whatever.”

Be in the Polish capital though.

“Where is that?”

I don’t know. I can’t think. Feel so muzzy and light-headed. Think I’m going to...

“Throw up!”

The Doctor retched into the gutter.

When he was through he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and shuddered.

“You need to be safe. Somewhere to think and heal,” he said in a squeaky voice. He pulled the rabbit out from his pocket and hugged her tightly.

“Can’t breathe!” he made her say. “I’m already bleeding.”

“Me too Fizzy. Where can I go that’s safe?”

“Back to the bathrooms,” he made her squeak, high pitched and breathless, as she was in pain too, “but the Ladies. No men there.”

The Doctor nodded, and stumbled painfully to his feet. He gasped as a shooting pain travelled from his lower back and hips down his legs and also his blood tricked down the back of his legs. He grabbed his bag and coat and stumbled to the fire door. A combination of the Master’s laser scalpel and a tiepin he’d bought in Brussels unlocked the door, and a painful thirty minutes later, unlocked the next one off the stairwell and then the Ladies.

The women’s public toilets were twice the size of the Gents, with no urinals, obviously, and lots of cubicles, some marked for disabled women, some marked as larger for buggies or prams, and/or to change nappies and two marked as a private space to breastfeed. Only one also had a toilet and sink along with a chair and baby changing facility.

The Doctor chose the latter, and partially crawled inside, exhausted, weak, shaky, and sick with pain. After locking the door he bundled his travel bag as a pillow, curled up on his side and pulled his coat over as a blanket. He hugged Fizzallundra tightly and waited for sleep, a healing coma, regeneration, or even death, he was actually past caring.

He slept. He more than slept. He slipped into a light coma and then it lifted into a true sleep, a much needed healing sleep.

He slept the day away. As he did, the bustle of shoppers and travellers and their children came and went. The sounds crept occasionally into his unconsciousness and dreams, as did the beautiful call to prayer and reciting of salat in a high-pitched, clear, feminine voice, three times, while he slept on. As he slept his body temperature dropped to near freezing, and a light rim of frost covered him. The bleeding slowed and then stopped, the bruising lessened and the cracks in the ribs knitted together.

 

*

Slowly he became aware of more sounds, footsteps, doors banging, running water and flushing toilets, women chattering, children yelling, babies crying, and finally a bell being run, a hand bell.

“Closing time!” a woman shouted in accented Polish.

There were sounds of feet, of pram wheels and chattering children, then a toilet flushed and someone ran, heavy footsteps, while they repeated an apology. A running tap, a hot air dryer engine, footsteps and a banged door, and then silence.

Silence.

Then singing. A door opened.

The Doctor listened intently. Someone was washing the floor. She sang in Arabic, and spoke to two children, who apparently were helping her, one polishing the sink, the other fetching and carrying.

“Mama?” asked a voice, just outside the door.

A knock, just a gentle tap tap tap on the door.

“Hello? Are you still in there? I put an out of order sign on the door, but I’m sorry, even if you are ill and homeless, I can’t let you spend the night there.”

“What if she’s dead?” the child whispered.

“I don’t think so, I can hear breathing. Hello? Are you sick? Do you need help?”

The Doctor painfully pulled himself up to his knees and unlocked the door. It was instantly pushed open.

“Hello? Oh! Hello sir, you really shouldn’t be...” the woman began, but she dropped to the floor and touched his face, looking at the blood on the floor, and the seat and legs of his trousers.

The Doctor sank back down on to the floor and looked into her green eyes, frightened, not knowing what would happen, would she call the police or paramedics? Help him? Throw him out? She was about forty, with no make up, a pink hijab framing her face, a paler pink long sleeved top with the sleeves rolled up over jeans and Converses. Behind her was her mini me, a girl of about ten or eleven with almost identical features and the same bright green eyes and pale olive skin, her brown hair pulled back in a tight plait down her back.

The woman sat down and put her hand from his cheek to his forehead, and then picked up his left wrist to check his pulse. Her eyes registered confusion but she merely turned to look at her daughter.

“Aaliya. Quick, get me the first aid box and a bowl of clean water and new cloths.”

“Yes Mama.”

“You’ve been raped?” the woman asked quietly as her daughter left earshot.

The Doctor nodded.

“You’re also too cold to be alive and your pulse has an echo, or a double rhythm.” She pointed to his chest. “May I?”

He nodded again.

She put her ear to his chest, first the left side, and then the right. He winced in pain. “I’m sorry, I’m sure you are bruised, or worse. You have two hearts, but one seems to be fibrillating. I’m sure they are supposed to syncopate in rhythm. The other is much slower too. Are you meant to be so cold?”

The Doctor looked at her helplessly.

“I’m Dr. Aafreen Homsi, but it’s a long time since I worked, and longer since I did general medicine. I’m a neurosurgeon, but obviously in the last days when I was in Homs I worked with trauma patients, so you can trust me. I say obviously, but why would you know about our wars?”

“Syria,” the Doctor said, painfully, his voice cracked.

“Sabeen,” Aafreen called, “please get Mama the bottle of water and a can of coke from my bag.”

“Okay Mama,” the younger child answered excitedly. There was a patter of feet and the Doctor saw a girl of about six or seven rush to an open cleaning cupboard.

“Caffeine okay for you?”

The Doctor nodded. “Well, as okay as it is for humans, at any rate.” He tried to smile.

Aafreen grinned. “The bleeding has stopped, hasn’t it? You should have died but you crawled in here to self heal, didn’t you?”

The Doctor nodded, his dead eyes lighting up a little at her reasoning.

“How can I help?”

“Please. Ring the Chinese Consulate. Tell then that the Doctor is ready to talk,” the Doctor stumbled out painfully, his voice hoarse.

“What?” Aafreen looked confused.

“Look up the nearest Chinese Consulate and ring them. Tell them the Doctor is broken and ready to give them what they want.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: RAPE/NON CON
> 
>  
> 
> Note on the Polish location – I made this town up, I imagine it as the original town as a post war communist construction, with housing blocks and abandoned steel works and refineries and a new side of the town, an early twenty first century modern build. The old town fell into disrepair and was ignored, housing alcoholics, addicts and those at the bottom of society with no family to look out for them, and was condemned and then, under order from the EuroCombine Migrants Minister, was patched up and housed Syrians and British refugees. The Doctor is also further away from Warsaw than if he had stayed with the trucker for the night!
> 
> TW: the Doctor is mugged  
> TW: the Doctor is forced to prostitute himself again, this time to someone interested in more kinky and violent stuff nothing explicit.  
> TW: Rape and non con the Doctor is raped. No descriptions


	19. Safe With The Homsis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning below

“Please. Ring the Chinese Consulate. Tell then that the Doctor is ready to talk,” the Doctor stumbled out painfully, his voice hoarse.

“What?” Aafreen looked confused.

“Look up the nearest Chinese Consulate and ring them. Tell them the Doctor is broken and ready to give them what they want.”

“I will do no such thing!” Aafreen said firmly. Both daughters were now standing in the doorway, peering shyly over their mother’s shoulders. The younger one had her blonde hair in pigtails and was dressed in a red dress over white tights and blue sandals. She mutely held out the drinks to the Doctor over her mother. Aafreen took the bottles and opened the water and handed it to the Doctor. “Drink Doctor,” she said, “then explain. But the Chinese are not going to get whatever they want from you. Did they put this in you?” she touched his tattoo. The Doctor nodded mutely around the water he was greedily and desperately guzzling down.

The older girl – Aaliya - put down the bowl of water and placed two flannels and some soap on her mother’s lap. “Is he really an alien? Are you? Are we rescuing him? Did the men with the Mark attack him? Why is he here?”

“Aaliya! Do not be rude. Of course we will help him. Get the keys from my bag and take Sabeen and Amaal to Auntie Suzan and bring back the car.”

“ I can’t drive Mama!”

“Don’t be silly, you and Baltasar got us out of Homs and half-way across the desert, and you drove us into Turkey.”

“Not on my own, Bally did the pedals. And this is a proper town, there will be police...”

“You are bigger now. Just be careful, drive safely, and bring the car to the service door. Quickly now. I need to help the Doctor to get him ready to get to our flat.”

“When did you leave Homs? I thought Syria was a burning waste?” the Doctor asked, incredulously, as Aaliya took her sister’s hand and walked to her Mum’s bag in the cupboard.

“You speak Arabic?”

“I speak all languages. Or right now I do at least. How old was she?”

“Five. Six. I forget. I was raped by government forces, then Daresh came, driving them back, and they would have executed me, as I no longer had a husband and I was pregnant. We had to get out fast. I was so ill. So you see, I know the shame and fear and pain you feel. Let me help you. If this is what the Chinese wanted for you, marking you as a male prostitute, then you don’t let them win. What do they want?”

“Oh, you know...” the Doctor clutched the back of his head and tried and failed to smile ironically. He merely looked closer to tears. “Faster than light equations, fusion reactor generator equations, gravity net and initial dampener theories...”

Aafreen nodded. “To win the new space race. I see. Where is your space ship?”

The Doctor laughed harshly. “I don’t have one, I have a space-time vehicle, a TT capsule, but you wouldn’t know it. The TARDIS. I call her the TARDIS. Time and Relative Dimension in Space. It’s disguised, bigger on the inside. And the Chinese have it.”

“And you are here because... are you trying to reach the border, get to Moscow and get the Trans-Siberian Express?”

The Doctor nodded and started to open the cola bottle.

“What are you?”

“I’m from the planet Gallifrey. I’m a Time Lord.”

Aafreen laughed. “That’s a bit pretentious, isn’t it? Let me guess, not all Gallifreyans are Time Lords, but only Time Lords are allowed to travel. Twins with the English, were you, separated at birth?”

The Doctor grinned. “I like you Aafreen. Maybe we were.”

“I’m glad you like me, as with your permission, I am going to clean up all that blood. Do you have a change of clothes in your bag?”

The Doctor flinched and hugged his rabbit tightly. His eyes glazed over again.

“I just need to check you’re not bleeding and have no broken bones.”

“Fizzy is bleeding,” the Doctor said numbly and began to rock.

Trauma, mental trauma, the beginnings of PTSD, Aafreen thought to herself, suspecting this latest rape wasn’t all he’d been through since his time ship had been taken and he’d been tattooed. She had no doubt that the chip was under the tat, either.

“I can find a stuffing infusion and stitch Fizzy back up at my flat Doctor,” Aafreen said gently. “But please, let me get the worst of the blood from you. Might I...?” she reached out and touched his bag.

The Doctor nodded and bit at the rabbit’s ear.

Fortunately, he had decided to keep the jeans and top that Tiger had bought him for the party, even if he had left the biker boots behind. Aafreen now pulled out the black jeans and some clean skinny white Calvin Klein boxers and some purple socks. She looked again at his thigh and the seat of his trousers again. She was going to need scissors, she decided, there was so much blood. If he was human she had no doubt he would have bleed to death. And the blood, a bright orangey-red rather than purple-red of human blood, even bright red arterial blood was purple to the Doctor’s species’ blood.

Aafreen had worked for SETI in her gap year before she had studied medicine in Chicago, but never in a million years did she dream of making first contact like this. But helping out a person traumatised by torture, violence, war, and rape, stuck on a journey, migrating and travelling in hope for safety and refuge, that was second nature to her now.

“I’m going to get scissors, alright Doctor, try to get on your knees, please. I’m going to have to cut the trousers, they are glued to you with dried blood.”

The Doctor looked at her horrified, rather like a frightened child, she thought. “They’re my suit trousers. They go with my jacket. I’ll look odd.”

“They’re beyond saving, I’m sorry. You’re not. Maybe you can find yourself a human suit. Please, let me.”

The Doctor nodded, but as she walked over to her bag, she thought she heard him whisper, “My husband gave me this suit.”

 

*

It had taken Aaliya more than an hour to get back. Aafreen had cleaned up the blood from the Doctor and put his blood-soaked trousers and the cleaning rags into a plastic bag to take out to the bins. She moved him to her seat by the door with, offering him pain relief, but he thought he was probably allergic to what she had, he knew aspirin was lethal, and didn’t want to risk it. She had scrubbed and scoured the mother and baby room until not a scrap of any blood, or other matter, until no alien DNA, remained. Aaliya had put on one of her mother’s hijabs to drive back and carried the Doctor’s bag down the stairs while he slowly, painfully, followed, clinging to the toy rabbit like a talisman. He climbed in the back seat and lay down. Aaliya covered him with a blanket, then climbed into the passenger seat, removing the cushion she had sat on from the driver’s seat and gave it to the Doctor for a pillow. The car was a battered Ford estate, forty years old if a day. Aafreen still had to finish up her job, the next day wasn’t one of her shifts.

“Are you really an alien?” the child asked.

“I’m not human, I wasn’t born on Earth, so yes. You are amazing. Clever that, putting on the scarf and sitting on the cushion, so you looked like a grown up.”

Aaliya shrugged. “Whatever.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem.” The girl was silent for a moment, and then said, “I’m sorry. Not all humans are bad. I’m sorry you were hurt so bad. Were they men with the red mark on their neck?”

The Doctor shook his head. “I don’t think so. They covered their faces. But they seemed too.... compos mentis, if you know what I mean. Not crazed and feral. They knew exactly what they were doing.”

“It’s Latin, it means mentally aware, I think. This is a bad place to live;” she went on to the Doctor’s grin to her understanding Latin, “it’s getter more scary all the time. There are rape gangs, too. I was thinking of cutting my hair and dressing like a boy if we stay here.” The girl sounded decades beyond her years, speaking in a depressed, empty monotone, when earlier she had been an excited child.

“Sensible. But look at me, doesn’t make you safe. You should be true to yourself Aaliya.”

Aaliya sighed and shuddered. “I said was. I didn’t think it happened to men. Maybe the tattoo? Maybe coz you are quite pretty? God forgive me! I shouldn’t be looking at men!” The girl blushed and pulled the scarf over her face.

The Doctor propped himself up and touched her shoulder. “Aaliya. Look at me. There is no shame in looking. I’m not offended. I’m sure your God isn’t – don’t you call him the Most Merciful? And there are evil people everywhere. And kind people. I was lucky today, your family are all so kind.”

Aaliya dropped her scarf and looked at the Doctor, seeing kindness behind the pain and fear. She had seen it many times, sometimes the violence drove out the kindness, sometimes it brought it out. “If you really are an alien...” she began.

“I am.”

“Maybe... maybe you can help us, help my brother. He... he has the Mark, you see...”

 

*

 

The Homsis’ flat was on the tenth floor, and there was no lifts, the building was a concrete block built under Communism in the 1950s for the refinery workers, it was functional and dull in its simplicity. They had three rooms, plus the bathroom and kitchen, both small, and little furniture. There was a mattress covered in quilts and cushions and a pile of larger floor cushions and a raffia rug on the floor between. A small TV and receiver sat on a cardboard box. A bunch of artificial flowers were placed in an empty jam jar on the windowsill. An old scarf was used as a curtain.

Aafreen struggled to help the Doctor lie down on the mattress, scattering cushions to the floor. The walk from the car and up ten flights of stairs had wiped him out and hurt like crazy. His healing coma had repaired the torn artery and replaced some blood, as well as knit the cracked bones, but obviously his autonomic self-healing had too much to do deal with all the bruising, inside and out. He was breathless and shaking and Aafreen, small built and malnourished, was equally struggling and exhausted. She looked at her daughter, carrying the Doctor’s and her bags.

“Get your sisters, ask Auntie Suzan if she has eaten? Invite her round.”

“Yes Mama.”

“Okay Doctor?” Aafreen asked, touching his forehead. “You’re warmer now, but still cold to touch. I wish I knew what was normal for you.”

“Sleep. I just need to sleep. You are going to call the Chinese for me?”

“No. I won’t let them win.”

“The space race? Who do you owe allegiance to? The Europeans, the Russians, or the Americans? Your homeland is burning, literally burning, due to them!” the Doctor asked spitefully, lying back and curling up, his eyes closing.

“You. I’m helping you and I won’t let them win you.” She lifted his head onto a cushion, took off his shoes, and covered him with a blanket and left him to sleep, dragging herself to the kitchen to make some food with the little she had left from this week’s food vouchers and ration book allowance from her small wages. Most of her wages went on equipment and medicine for the clinic she helped set up and volunteered at.

The Doctor slept lightly, aware of sounds and chatter. The TV was put on for the news, the same he heard before, disasters, earthquakes, floods, famine, drought, a new speech by Salamander, an incursion by American military on the Mexican border over ‘immigrant scum’ according to the American President. The Mexican and Canadian Presidents issued a joint statement concerning the increasing militarization and growing abuses of human rights within the US and they were happy to accept refugees and were extending their own cooperation accords treaty. ISRO’s first manned flight was halfway to Mars and a radio interview with a seven-hour delay recorded earlier was played as a special with Polish dubbing. The local news blamed Muslim cultural incompatibility and British drunken ignorance for the increased spike in violence. A twitter post had gone viral over the previous 24 hours showing a British male prostitute standing up for a driver when violence had broken out on a downtown bus, but the Doctor barely registered he had made the news.

Suzan sounded elderly and African; she was given bread and tinned tomatoes and a stew of chickpeas and onions, for which she kept thanking Aafreen, then she left, taking another plate full for a flatmate called Ishtar. The children ate and then were sent to the other room while their mother breastfed the baby and finished the little food that was left, before praying the last prayer of the day. The Doctor was dimly aware of her thanking God for the size and enormity and diversity of his creation and asking for his help for the Doctor, along for healing for her son and that her extended family were alive. In his half-waking state he turned over and wept silently into the pillow.

* 

At dawn the Doctor was woken by the sound of someone weeping quietly, the kind of crying that expects no comfort and wants no one to overhear and worry. He pushed off the blanket and got up and silently walked about the flat. The children were asleep on mattresses in one room, another mattress empty, an old box converted to a crib beside it, with the baby also soundly asleep. A prayer mat sat and an angle on the floor at the end of the empty mattress, a scarf, cardigan and dikr beads laid beside it. He found the bathroom and emptied his bladder and drank straight from the tap. When he came out Aafreen was standing by the door to the other bedroom, dressed in a pink floor length nightie, pushing a clump of bushy light brown hair with ginger streaks out of her face. She saw him and blushed, pushing her hair down and back with both hands.

“I’m not a human male and I’m not attracted to human females, and you have seen a lot of me, far more of my aw’rah. It’s only hair. Forgive me for embarrassing you,” he whispered.

She let go off her hair and sniffed, wiping her tears from her cheeks with the heel of her left hand. “I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”

“I think I was ready to wake. Are you alright? I heard you cry?”

“I was in my son’s room. I was thinking of my husband. My son got out two days ago. He’s had the Mark for three weeks, not slept in all that time. I’ve been mixing what I can to make a sedative, and God forgive me, I’ve been keeping him tied up. His friend smashed the door and let him go two nights ago. Aaliya thinks you can help.”

“Maybe. This Mark and the behaviour interests me. I’m sure I’ve seen it somewhere before, a long time ago. I was looking in Princess Solutions window when I was... was...” the Doctor looked at his hand, which was shaking uncontrollably. Then his legs buckled and he sank to the floor. “I’m sorry,” he muttered quietly.

“It’s fine. You’re still in shock. Would you like some tea? Something to eat?”

“Uh-huh.” The Doctor stumbled, half-crawling, back to the mattress. 

Aafreen lit a gas lamp. “The electricity often goes out, plus it’s expensive,” she explained. “I’ll get you something to eat.”

While he waited the Doctor wrapped himself up in the blanket and his coat and brought his knees to his chest and hugged them and the toy rabbit. While he had slept Aafreen, or perhaps Suzan, had re-stuffed her with bits of fabric and sponged off the worst of the dirt and oil and grease. He stared at the window, the scarf now draped over most of it, blowing in the breeze from ill-fitted windows, unblinking. He mustn’t close his eyes; if he did he was going to have flashbacks again, not just to what happened last night, but to his last client, and to the brothel in Germany.

Aafreen brought him a small dish of the stew, cold, and flat bread, made of the same stodgy, grey, Euro-Combine rationed flour, plus a small dish of olives and few dates. She also brought a pot of mint tea and a small dish of sugar.

“Thank you. Thank you for everything.”

“We must all do our best, we treat people as we wish to be treated. It is my religion, the only thing that keeps me going. But in payment, tell me about China and what happened? Did you land somewhere there?”

“No. Paris.” The Doctor gave a brief summery of all that had happened, calling Chan Yu his friend and leaving out the row before they arrived on Earth. He didn’t want to test her liberal beliefs to their limit, although he didn’t know why. She knew he had a preference for men, even though the prostitution was forced on him. He missed out much about the Master, apart from the fact he’d been rescued by him. He spoke numbly, like a Cyberman, hiding all pain, as he couldn’t cope with it yet.

“You can’t let them to win! Stay as long as you need to recover, and we will find a way to get you over the border. In fact, you maybe an answer to our prayers.”

“Why?”

“I think. That is I hope. My husband might be in Uzebekistan. For a brief time, six months ago, he managed to message me on facebook. He and a group of rebels had been trafficked into Afghanistan, and then captured and rendered by Pakistani forces and sold to an American military base. He’d got out and made it as far as Tashkent. His facebook and twitter accounts are still active, but he may have no credit or battery or lost his phone.”

“After all you’ve been through, you have your phone?”

Aafreen involuntarily glanced through the door to where her bed was. “It has my family photos, my memories, my contacts. How can we ever find each other again? You cling to your phone, your money, and your gold, as much as you do your family.”

“I’ve had money and lost it two or three times since I woke up in the Jungle the other side of Europe with nothing.”

“I suppose money is not usually an issue for you? Not your culture?”

The Doctor shook his head, “No. But for me, the things I cling too, the Chinese have as well as my TARDIS – I cling to my sonic screwdriver, my psychic paper, my TARDIS key, and my companions. Without them I am lost. Completely lost. And a tiny bit afraid.”

“A tiny bit?”

“A tiny big bit!”

“I can’t remember not feeling afraid. I felt less so here, until the boys started getting marked and attacking people and property. And I think you are right. I think Princess Solutions maybe involved. I can’t think of many examples of youths and young men helped, but a lot, if not all the boys affected, they were going to classes there. I’m not the only one, many women at my clinic, volunteers and patients alike, have suspected the so-called charity. It’s run by a stuck up woman, people hardly see her, she employs locals, which is good I guess...” Aafreen tailed off. “Do you think it’s alien?”

“I have no idea. There is this itch, a ghost of a memory, like I’ve seen something similar, but I can’t quite remember. Like it’s lurking at the back of my mind...”

“It will come it you don’t try. You’ve been through a lot.”

“So have you,” the Doctor said meaningfully. “You, your family, your neighbours. How did you get to be here, in northern Poland, so far from Syria? Do you mind me asking?”

Aafreen shook her head, “Life was good,” she began. “We had a gorgeous apartment, with three large balconies, one with an orange tree. We lived in a gated community with a play park at the centre. I had a nanny and help with the home. Then the crops failed and so much farmland became desert. My older brother and his family had to come live with us. We were overcrowded. People demonstrated on the streets – we wanted our Leader to care, to notice what was happening to the environment, to peoples’ lives. Then it grew, and there was violence on the streets, hospital doctors stopped being paid, my husband and I still worked, but for nothing. My brother and nephews could find nothing as the economy was collapsing. We wanted democracy, freedom, a state that worked for the people, for the world to know that climate change is real, is now. We asked the West for help, but they ignored us. But Daresh didn’t, men and arms poured in from Iraq, money from Saudi, and still the West did nothing. But so many angry young men were groomed and brainwashed, left the resistance to become Daresh. Then the bombing started, the only help I think the West knows. They called us terrorists. The government forces were getting close, my husband and brother and nephews were rebels, they had to leave. The govt left us with no food, no medicine, no anything, for months. The Russians bombed us, calling us terrorists. They made it easy for Daresh. Retreating government forces were high on killing; one found me and raped me, in front of my children. They shot my neighbour, so maybe I was lucky. I took her daughter with me, but she died of malnutrition, before we could get to an internal UN camp. By that time the UN and aid agencies and volunteers had pulled out, they had been bombed one time too many. My daughter and son drove, like I told you before Doctor. We took months to get across to Turkey. My daughter was born on the side of the road, just into Turkey. A farmer and his wife stopped to help, and then the police came and drove us to the camp, a city of tents. We stayed there a year, ’til the winter, but Sabeen was ailing, so we left. I still had a car and money and gold hidden. We got to Istanbul, but the border was closed. It took nearly all the money left to get on a boat and make it to Lesvos. It was in the over-crowded, stinking camp, with no sanitation and no tents, just blankets and some food and misery; I was raped again. Then the EuroCombine Acts happened, and borders ceased and we were sent here. We have a flat, I have a job, I volunteer at the clinic, we help each other, we try not to hate the British refugees, life is not good, but better. Then the young men started going crazy, they stop sleeping and run riot, like wild dogs, stealing and looting, beating and raping, vandalising and breaking, and some people say it’s alien, some a Chinese or Russian plan for invasion, others a EuroCombine or Polish plan to make us all kill each other off. Then there are the other drug addicts, the rape gangs, the mindless vandals, and bullies. You’re talking of a population of some 20,000 Doctor, of whom two thirds to three quarters have some form of post traumatic stress disorder, children who have seen family members dismembered, shot, beheaded, drowned, raped, young people who saw the same as children and teenagers, women who have been raped and have children by their rapist, people who have known nothing but war and hunger, a generation who haven’t gone to school. What can the EuroCombine do with us all? They were struggling to get to grips with us when more than half of the UK set sail in an armada of tiny boats to ask for refuge. Funny how they responded so fast for the white Christian Europeans, though. Call me a cynic...”

Aafreen looked up to see the Doctor frozen, his body and face so still, giving her his absolutely attention, silent fat tears of compassion rolling down his cold alien cheeks. “Oh, I’m sorry Doctor,” she said.

“They weren’t all white though, were they? Or so-called Christians? Most of the British refugees I’ve met from The New Jungle to here have been Muslim and brown and black skinned,” the Doctor said as if she hadn’t apologised, gently correcting her.

“I’m sorry,” she apologised again, and nodded, “It’s true they got rid of all their Muslims and non whites and other religions.” She looked at his sad, deep, eyes, “How primitive we must seem to you.”

“No. Oh no. I’ve seen war, fought in a war, defended my own planet, seen horrors that even you can’t imagine Aafreen.”

Aafreen looked into the Doctor’s eyes and saw something of the reflected horror there, but couldn’t be comforted. “You fought for your planet, your people,” she said sadly, “but Gallifreyans didn’t tear each other apart.”

The Doctor looked down. “No. But you’re amazing, homo sapiens, indomitable, remarkable, you will be amazing when you get out there to space, the very worst of species, yes, but also, also, by so so far beyond others, the very very best of species. I promise you.”

Aafreen looked at the Doctor again. “I hope so,” she said. “We talk of species and concepts, but how are you, deep down, you have suffered so much here, whatever you have seen previously, however old you are. You need to talk, and instead, you got me to talk.”

“Do you?”

“What?”

“Talk about all you’ve been through, seen, experienced?”

“I’m fine Doctor, so many are so much worse. I stay cheerful for the children, support my neighbours, and help at the clinic as some can’t survive so well, need all the listening to and love we can give.” She sighed and looked down. “But it is never enough, and never will be.”

The Doctor stumbled up from his mattress and held out his arms, “I’d like to give you a hug, Aafreen, you so need a hug, but I am aware of your beliefs and culture...”

Aafreen stood up and folded herself into the hug, holding him tightly and hugging him back. “You’re not a man at all, not in the sense of a human male, Doctor, so I’m sure it would be fine.”

“Plus, in a simple human understanding, you would say I’m quite, quite gay,” the Doctor replied back, with a grin, that Aafreen felt on her shoulder.

 

*

Aafreen had been quite embarrassed by her outburst and the hug and had bustled about, making more tea, tidying the crockery away and waking the children. The older two went of the the UNICEF schools and Aafreen took the baby next door, to Auntie Suzan and her flatmates, an Iraqi woman and her baby, the baby also a result of rape. Aafreen explained the resulting trauma had left Ishtar agoraphobic and wouldn’t have been able to cope with the care of her son if it hadn’t been for Suzan adopting her and looking after her. Suzan came from Eritrea and had lost her entire family – daughter, daughter-in-law, and five grandchildren, on the Mediterranean crossing. White European anti-migrant terrorists had torpedoed their boat. She had decided to give in and die but then found the pregnant Ishtar at the resettlement camp and took her under her wing. She had already lost her son and son-in-law to the chaos and terrorism in her own country.

“Someone to live for,” she had said to the Doctor later, when she popped into see if he was all right and bring a little food. Aafreen had gone to do her voluntary shift at the clinic.

“It’s always good to have people to care for,” he agreed carefully. “I usually travel with people, it keeps me...” sane, he wondered.

“From going too far you alien nutter,” he heard Donna say in his head.

“Gives me a reason to make the right choices,” he said.

Suzan looked at him and sat down on the floor. “Are you really an alien?”

The Doctor nodded. “You don’t seem surprised.”

“We say, in our prayers, ‘Lord of the Worlds’ and our Book teaches that our God never ceases to create,” Suzan replied, nodding wisely. “Good job too as this creation is tearing itself apart. You are lucky Aafreen found you; she’s so good, and so worried for her son. He has the Mark, you know.”

“Tell me about this Mark, please.”

“The boys, the young men, they suddenly have it and then they don’t sleep and go crazy with it, getting more and more violent, more like animals than men. More and more every week - mostly us refugees but poor Polish boys too. The English are the worst. They repress their violence and then it explodes so badly, I think. I try to be kind to the English, but it is hard. They only reason Europe did anything for us was suddenly they had white Europeans in our situation.”

“I was looking into Princess Solutions when I was attacked. I saw... something about the red mark on the neck reminds me...” the Doctor grabbed his head as if it was about to fall off. “Oh! I’m so stupid! A Doctor of no brain at all! I’ve been so distracted! I know what the Mark is Suzan, I know what is causing it and who is doing it!”

“What? Who? Can you help us?”

“I believe so, yes. But I’m so injured I can barely walk!”

Suzan stood up and held out her hand. “Come. Come next door. Let Ishtar look at you. With respect to Aafreen, let’s see if she can help more. I mean no disrespect, but Aafreen was a neurosurgeon who can patch up trauma, Ishtar was a veterinarian, and so was used to dealing with hundreds of species...”

“I’m not an animal you know,” the Doctor said slowly, running his fingers through his hair.

“No, but you are not human.”

The Doctor grinned. “True.”

“Besides, she has a phone, we can call Aafreen and get her to come discuss what you know. I am an old lady and Ishtar is frail, you will need help if you can really stop this.”

“Yeah, yeah I think I can. Now I know who I’m dealing with. And ooh, won’t she be surprised, as I’m in no mood for games or forgiveness.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWs: descriptions and memories of environmental devastation and homelessness; rioting, police brutality, state sponsored oppression, bombing, and torture; terrorist bombing and torture and executions including beheadings and floggings; US, Russian and EU bombing, and the deaths and injuries sustained; rapes, injuries and deaths; hunger and fear from living under siege.


	20. The Mark of the Rani

Aafreen walked across the forecourt of the housing block and up to the small precinct, trying to look normal and not terrified. She pushed the buggy with a sleeping Amaal, Sabeen standing on the runner under her handles. Her elder daughter Aaliya walked one side of her and beside her on the other side her Eritrean friend Suzan carried her neighbour’s baby boy Ali while Ishtar held onto Suzan’s other arm, and she did look terrified. But then, this was the first time Ishtar had been out of the flat since they had relocated her here from Lesvos and the rape in the resettlement camp, she’d even given birth in the flat, with her, Suzan, and Aalimah in attendance. She wondered how Aalimah was feeling, volunteering as the Doctor’s wingman... woman... back up... sergeant? Bodyguard? She had no idea.

As they approached the double shop frontage of Princess Solutions she took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, glancing at Suzan and then down at her daughter, who gave her a cheeky thumbs up. Ishtar shrank back behind Suzan.

Aaliya looked at their elders and rolled her eyes as none of them took the first move. “For goodness sakes,” she muttered quietly and took the extra step to the door, and with a muttered, “Bismillah,” under her breath, she banged on the door.

 

*

Dr. Aalimah Nasser looked at the Doctor, this marvel, this wonder, this miracle, that she had met only two hours before in Aafreen’s apartment, and bit her lip. She had led him around the back to the maze of alleys and service drives and car parking bays that sat at the back of the shopping unit and in the middle housing blocks. She pointed to a metal fire door, hidden illegally behind a large Grundy bin and a burnt out car.

“That’s the right entrance,” she whispered.

The Doctor nodded and tried the door. Locked. He pulled out a hair clip he had obviously picked up for Aafreen’s place from his pocket and tried to pick it.

“What I wouldn’t give for my sonic screwdriver,” he muttered.

“What’s that?” Aalimah asked, pushing a strand of stray hair back under her stars and moons patterned hijab.

“It’s a thing... never mind, it’s probably dead locked.”

“I have a screwdriver and a socket set, if that helps?”

Aalimah struggled to get her backpack of the shoulders and squatted down to open it. She pulled out three small black leather cases and unzipped them, one at a time – a small socket set, a small tool set, with interchangeable heads, and a complete set of surgeons instruments from a case inscribed in gold writing a verse from the Qu’ran. “Help yourself,” she said.

“You’re amazing Aalimah!” the Doctor said, grinning.

While the Doctor tried various instruments and tools to break into the back of Princess Solutions, Aalimah texted Aafreen to see if ‘Operation Distraction’ had begun. She also looked for an open window in case the Doctor’s house breaking skills failed him.

 

*

 

“Where are our sons?” Aafreen repeated, encroaching on the haughty woman’s space, pointing a finger. 

The woman who ran the ‘charity’ had first called one of her goons she employed as her ‘assistants’, her barely concealed bodyguards, but Suzan and Ishtar held up their phones and told them they were not only filming but streaming to a friend who would send it to the police the minute any one of them were harmed.

“They came here weeks ago to study English and have help with exams and job interviews, and we’ve not seen them since,” Aafreen insisted.

“What is that to do with me?” the woman sneered, tossing her long blonde plait arrogantly.

 

*

 

“If only I had paid more attention to Jo,” the Doctor said sadly as Aalimah came back up to him. She instantly began putting all her tools back into her rucksack and pulled out a folding baton, an old style police nightstick, and flipped it down. The Doctor watched, a mixture of horror, respect, and surprise playing out on his face.

“There’s a window. I can fit through it if you give me a bunk up,” she said.

“What’s that? Why do you have it?”

“I run a clinic full of people with PTSD, people desperate, depressed, often dependant on drugs or alcohol to help them get through, and that was before this Mark started. I need to protect my patients. Come on, it’s just here.” Aalimah held her bag by its straps and slipped between the wall and the bins; pointing up to a small window above and to the left of the door the Doctor has been trying to open. She glanced at him and rolled her eyes. “If you can really stop what is happening we need to get a move on, Aafreen and everyone can’t distract her forever.”

The Doctor nodded and made a stirrup with his hands. Aalimah placed backpack down on the floor and lifted her long sleeved black tee shirt and slipped the baton down the back of her black jeans, giving the Doctor a brief glimpse of her studded leather belt and her pale pinkish brown skin, and, bracing herself on the wall, put her DM booted foot into the Doctor’s hands.

 

*

 

The sudden sound of something falling a long way back in the building quietly resounding by the doorway and reception was heard by all of the distraction committee. The woman looked around, and began to turn. Ishtar grabbed her sleeve and began to wail, high pitched.

“My son! My boy! What have you done with him? He’s all I have!”

As she did so Suzan subtly placed herself between the woman and the door inside from the reception.

 

*

 

Aalimah opened the door on the Doctor, grinning. “That was wicked!” she said, and immediately took her backpack and shouldered it properly, the straps clinking on her many silver rings.

“Thank you,” the Doctor whispered, putting his fingers to his lips. He walked in and placed himself in front of her. 

Aalimah stepped in front of him, holding out her nightstick. “I’ve got this,” she hissed.

“I need you to stay out of sight and listen,” the Doctor whispered. “If I call... or sound like I need help... then you may need to use that. But only on equipment I point to, okay?”

“I’m a doctor too, I’ve sworn to do no harm, I can disable with minimum damage if I have to.” In point of fact, Aalimah was not a full doctor, the civil war interrupting her in her fifth year of training, but she had more than unofficially completed her studies in various refugee camps. UNHCR had given her a qualification, but whether if would ever be recognised outside a refugee, UNHCR funded, clinic, or a camp, she had no idea. She was not yet thirty, and had probably seen more trauma and death than she suspected a doctor in America or Russia saw in an entire career! She was here mainly to see if she could find out what the hell this woman – Time Lady if the Doctor was to be believed – had done to those boys and men so she could undo it. Give them rest and perhaps the animalistic violence would abate.

“I’m not going to do any harm, I promise,” the Doctor hissed back, but Aalimah was not sure, the alien man’s eyes were fire and ice, and he was suffering from physical and mental trauma from rape. The fact was he was angry, so very angry, that a member of his own species was playing with humans brain chemistry with no reason but to further her own selfish ends, and she had no idea what he planned, other than stop it happening.

*

 

“I keep telling you, I have no idea where your sons are. I’ve checked my records and yes, they enrolled, but they never showed up. Now please, leave me alone!” the Rani said, as calmly and politely as she could be to these monkeys.

“Please,” the calmer one, the pale one, said. The browner one sobbed hysterically while the darker one held her. The male mewling infant had awaked and was shrieking the building down. The children were slowly working their way through her card indexes and laptop registers, thinking that she was paying them no heed, as they were children. She had to give it to these human females; they were determined.

Suddenly there came a loud banging, a repetitive noise, from the back of the building, from her labs and where her TARDIS was stored.

She turned, and looked again at these women. “What?” she roared at them. “What is this?”

A male voice then called from inside in Shobogan accented Gallifreyan as the banging continued. “Rani! Rani! Oi! I’ve got your precious brain chemicals and I’m gonna destroy the lot!”

It could only be one person, to come backed up by human females, determined to interfere with her research. “Doctor!” she yelled and ran inside her premises.

 

*

 

The Rani ran through the classrooms and lecture rooms to the back, to her hidden laboratory. As she went she snapped her figures and her two controlled monkeys came to life and followed her. As she entered the lab she stopped, pausing. The backwash of disturbed artron energy, from another universe, from time displaced, washed off him in waves. On top of that he was transmitting anger and pain and fear, unshielded trauma backwashing a painful tsunami, a torrent of negative unshielded emotion, like a small, young, Time Tot yet to learn control. She literally took a step back. She saw her precious harvest in his hands and stilled the boys with a command.

“Josh. Daniel. Stay.” She glared at the Doctor and demanded, “Give me that back Doctor. If it is you?”

“Oh yes, it is me!”

“Some kind of mid life crisis I see!” she snarled. He was young looking, pretty, made up, in tight human jeans and some kind of human sports shoe, a tight tee shirt was covered in a suit jacket. His hair backcombed crazily above his delicately featured face. Koschei would wet himself to see such a Doctor.

“Rani!” He held up the test tubes that represented months of work.

“Give it back!” she took a step forward, and as she did so he held his other hand aloft, swinging a piece of wood. She realised he had made himself a makeshift weapon from a broken table, that he had broken the table, and smashed up a good deal of her equipment. That explained the noise.

“Maybe. If you leave and don’t come back. If you can put right the damage you have done to this community,” he demanded.

The Rani scoffed. “These mayfly humans, they live such a short existence. In a wink of an eye this town will have recovered and moved on. Chaos and death merely starting up elsewhere. There is always enough hunger, violence, war, famine, societal breakdown. These homo sapiens can’t live with themselves. I have no idea what you see in them. Now, please, will you calm down and put down my chemicals.”

The Doctor’s eyes widened, shocked at her placating tone. She was talking to him as a child in a tantrum. “No!” he faltered. “If you can put them back, sort out the mess...”

“My own aliens need that brain fluid and the hormones and chemicals inside, they are suffering,” she began again, calmly and rationally.

The Doctor narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “Stop talking to me as a child!” he roared. “We’ve crossed time streams, you and I, and I am so much older than you. So much older and less forgiving. You can’t just steal from humans to cure your own aliens!”

“Crossed more than time streams,” the Rani muttered quietly. “Calm down. I was planning to go soon, I’ve been here half a solar year; I never stay too long. I’ve refined the process, when I leave my TARDIS releases a gas of my making, and it will treat those whom I’ve taken the brain fluid from.”

“I... I don’t believe you!” he faltered.

“I give them sleep Doctor. Forever,” she explained calmly.

“You kill them!” he cried in horror.

The Rani shrugged.

The Doctor began to smash up her equipment again, targeting anything obviously Gallifreyan, screaming in anger as he did so.

“Doctor!” she began again, anger rising in her voice. “Josh. Daniel. Go to the front and kill one of the women on my command.”

“NO!!!” the Doctor turned on her. “I’ll smash these now!” he held up the tray of vials aloft, his long arm stretching, revealing a tattoo of some sort on his wrist. It took a beat for the Rani to realise what it meant to this era and location of humans, anthropology had never been particularly interesting to her.

“What do you want of me Doctor? That is an interesting tattoo, I’m sure the Master would love to know about the story behind that,” she taunted.

“This!” roared the Doctor. “This! Was not my idea! It was forced on me when my TARDIS was stolen! But that is nothing. Since I got here your collateral damage has mugged me, beaten me up twice, mugged me again, and gang raped me!” He started smashing up more lab equipment and stored extraction chemicals and those she used to control the chosen boys she needs to assist her.

The Rani stepped back, her hand over her mouth, horrified. That a Time Lord could suffer such abuse had not crossed her mind. “Doctor, I’m...” she began, before she composed herself. “Calm down. What do you want? Help to regain your TARDIS? The chip under the tattoo removed? I can do that, if you give me the chemicals...”

The Doctor paused, the broken table leg slipping through his fingers. She saw tears were silently rolling down his cheeks. She wondered how long he had been crying. She took careful and quiet steps toward him, taken suddenly unawares when a skinny human female dressed in black rushed from behind her TARDIS and grabbed the tray of her needed chemicals.

“No Doctor!” the girl said vehemently. “You promised to help us!” She turned to the Rani, holding a primitive weapon in front of her with her other hand, and gestured with it. “You. Rani. You will tell me how to replace this chemical. What is it, melatonin? Or something else?”

“Melatonin is one of three separate hormones I extract, yes. Along with several other rare chemicals and some RNA. But it would mean nothing to you girl.”

“I want people not harmed, and if I can, I want to get those men and boys back. If I can’t, I want enough for my friend’s son. Else I will smash this, and I won’t shout about it. You get me?”

“Are you a scientist? A medic?” the Rani asked.

“Yes!” was the surprising answer from the female monkey child. Still, the Rani accepted the answer and spoke accordingly.

“Medicated coma would be the only thing you can treat the males with, but it would make your neighbourhood safe. But so does my solution, at less cost.”

Aalimah stared at the woman. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just kill then men in the first place?” she asked reasonably, although horror at more deaths of her species was behind her eyes. Still, the girl was a medic of some kind.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the Rani sneered in reply, “even in a lawless place, authorities won’t ignore such a volume of unexplained death. I need to work uninterrupted. The side effects also have the bonus of creating a needed distraction to any authorities.”

The young woman glanced at the Doctor, who seemed to have dropped to the floor and was hugging his knees, and pointed to him. “Many human women and a few men have been traumatised like him due to the resulting violence of your victims. Don’t you care?”

The Rani shrugged. “You humans are doing it to yourselves already. My little contribution is a mere drop in the ocean.”

“What about him?”

The Rani looked down at the Doctor, and saw something broken and hurt, someone who reminded her of little Theta Sigma, before he learnt to shield his emotions better. “The Doctor will be fine, he’s a survivor,” she said at some length. “Doctor?”

He looked up at her.

“Do wish my help?”

“I want you to go, and leave these humans alone!” he snarled up at her.

“Fine. You see.”

The girl-medic sighed. “I wanted to find out if I can help the men and boys affected, but you tell me it would be impossible.”

“Even if you refused to give it back, and had the facilities to replace it, which I doubt, you would have to find each and every one of them and compel them to cooperate with their treatment. Curses! Why did I ever come so far forward in human history, you have too much understanding now. Now, my dear doctor...?”

“Nasser. Aalimah Nasser.”

“Dr. Nasser. Can we come to some arrangement?”

Aalimah looked down at the Doctor. “Doctor? What do you think?”

“I can’t see how we could find them all and return what was taken with the equipment at your clinic, even with my help. Inside her TARDIS – that old oak wardrobe over there, it’s disguised – you will find equipment to convert what is in those vials raw to make an injection of a chemical compound as a treatment. But how do we get all those violent men to cooperation?” He shuddered, as if remembering the violence he had experienced.

Aalimah sighed. “Free those two from your control and send them home,” she said to the Rani. “Then we will discuss terms for the return of this.” She held up the tray.

The Rani nodded, folding her arms. The child was impressive, she thought quickly, took on board information fast, and wasn’t beholden to the Doctor, like many a human girl he travelled with, that was obvious.

Aalimah turned to the Doctor. “In my back pocket, is my phone. Ring Aafreen and tell her they need to start a search for Bally now, that they don’t have long before he will die like the rest.”

The Doctor looked at her, bewildered. 

“We can’t save them. I’m a doctor, a proper doctor, Doctor, and I know triage. We will save Baltasar if we can. That a deal Rani?” Aalimah looked at her. “You use your TARDIS to create one dose for my friend’s child. He’s only thirteen. I know we live such short lives to you, but that is still a child. I don’t know how many other children you processed, nor can you or I guess. He pretended to be sixteen when he came to your class. He wanted to work, to support his family, be the man of the family.” Aalimah looked down at the Doctor and back to the Rani. “I suspect that means nothing to either of you.”

The Rani sighed. The girl was right, it didn’t. “Very well. Josh. Daniel. Go home. Sleep. When you wake you will forget me and all you did.”

The three watched the two young white men leave.

“You had an Arabic man too,” the Doctor said, softly.

“I’m afraid he was injured yesterday,” the Rani replied dismissively.

“Gunshot? Thigh? About 11 am yesterday a man was dumped outside my clinic, called Ahmed, he had no memory for about six weeks,” Aalimah asked.

“That was him,” the Rani confirmed. She sighed again, heavily. “Put down your weapon and make your call Dr. Nasser. In fact, Doctor, take the phone, and go and help them. Your companion and I have much to discuss.”

The Doctor stumbled to his feet. The Rani stepped forward and held out a hand, which he ignored with a look of contempt.

“For the record Doctor, I am sorry you were caught in the crossfire,” the Rani said to him gently, and meant it. “This was to be my last visit anyway, I have enough now. No precious time lines have been damaged; merely a few humans who might have been anyway. The offer is still there, I can take you to your TARDIS, wherever the humans have it, and remove your chip.”

Aalimah shoved her phone into his hands, interrupting the conversation. “Go and tell Aafreen and help find her son. You owe her. She saved your life!”

The Doctor nodded. He headed for the door, and as he did so he heard Aalimah ask, “This TARDIS, what else can it do?”

 

*

 

“Your friend Aalimah, she’s fierce, isn’t she?” the Doctor said, returning to Aafreen’s flat, where, as arranged, they had all fled to once he had begun shouting.

“She’s tough. She set up that clinic and is very defensive of it, and I guess she just wants this Mark to stop hurting people. Are you okay? Where is she? Has that woman gone?”

The Doctor looked down at his hand, it was shaking. He nodded and tried to smile. “Aalimah is holding her precious chemicals to ransom. She will leave and when she does she will release a chemical that will shut down all those with the Mark, so the violence will stop...”

“Shut down!” Aafreen put her hand to her mouth.

“Wait. We have to find your son. If you, me, Suzan, and your daughter each take a quarter of the suburb we can try to find him. We have a few hours. Aalimah is getting enough to cure him.”

“What about everyone else?” Suzan asked.

“Even if we can get the Rani to let us use her labs on her ship to refine enough for injections to treat them, how will we find them and get them to agree to it? They are wild, and even if we could get the police to help us, we don’t have enough time and I don’t think they have the manpower. I thought about it Suzan, I did,” the Doctor replied apologetically. He turned to the younger woman, sitting on the floor with a laptop in front of her, her baby son asleep on her lap. “Ishtar?”

Ishtar looked up, nervous. “If you get the laptop on, and get a map on screen we can work out how to divide the area. I have Aalimah’s phone, if you give yours to Aaliya, we can keep in touch. You can message us via the laptop if he turns up here. Whoever finds him, hold him and ask for help, then the next nearest needs to get to him and then we take him back to Princess Solutions. Right?”

While he was talking, Ishtar had got up a Google-Earth map and was zooming in on the old town and the housing and shipping areas, along with a small wooded area, which ran along the banks of an old river and the deserted refineries, which was where a lot of the men with the Mark were believed to be. 

Quickly the Doctor ascribed areas to each woman and girl. “Come on then,” he said at the door, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Tempus fugit. Allons-y.”

 

*

 

The Doctor took the woodland and deserted factories. It was twilight, the sunlight fast fading under the perennial dust and rain clouds. It was sleeting. He had memorised a picture of Aafreen’s son from a picture on her phone. He was a skinny, tall, boy, darker than his mother and sisters, a gap in his too big adult front teeth. He’d grinned for his mother, and yet what horrors he must have seen. It was taken the week they arrived in Poland, before they had been ascribed the flat, according to his mother.

Only after he threw himself into a scratchy bush to hide, did he realise that four people for four quarters had made sense with the time factor, two people, each pair taking a half, might have made more sense from a safety perspective. He knew both women and the girl had a pepper spray and a rape alarm, and he rather suspected Suzan had a knife in her handbag.

The gang he had hidden from were all older men, and Polish locals or British refugees, going by the colour of their skin and hair, although he knew many Syrians were barely any darker coloured than Europeans.

Just then Aalimah’s phone ran, showing Ishtar’s number.

Aaliya. 

*

The Doctor walked into Princess Solutions, carrying the youth he had been forced to render semi-unconscious with a combination of a well placed hit to the back of his head and a telepathic suggestion. Even then it was difficult to stop him fighting and struggling for quite a while. Aaliya, who watched her brother in his arms as if witnessing a miracle, naturally followed him in. Aafreen and Suzan had already returned and sat on chairs outside the Rani’s TARDIS door, judging by their faces they had been inside. Of Aalimah and the Rani there was no sign. Immediately Aafreen cried out in joy and leapt to her feet, rushing to the Doctor and the prone child in his arms.

“Oh Bally. Baltasar. My boy, my son!” She stroked his cheek and showered his face with tiny kisses.

Suzan had got up too, and fetched the Rani and Aalimah. The Doctor laid the boy down on the only unbroken table and watched as the Rani passed Aalimah a hypospray.

“The neck,” she instructed the young doctor, who did as she was told, in the middle of the large red circular mark. At the hiss the boy’s back arched, and he let out a murmur and seemed to fall into a more natural sleep. As they watched, the red mark faded slowly.

“Right. I have kept my side of the bargain,” the Rani said, pointing to piles of crates and boxes, that the Doctor realised were medical supplies. A plastic document wallet sat on one of the crates, which the Doctor was more curious about.

“Oh no,” Aalimah said, but with a grin. The Doctor was startled. Had the Rani actually bonded with a human being, with another sentient being? Or was Aalimah just threatening ever so gently? Aalimah scared and impressed him in equal measure. He wished he had his TARDIS, as he was sure he wanted to invite her to travel with him.

“Very well,” the Rani said coldly, and went back into her TARDIS, returning with a small pouch. “Doctor,” she snapped irritably, but then when had he not irritated her? She walked up to him and opened the pouch, and picked up his hand and opened his fist with her left hand. She began to place small pill carriers into his palm. “Pain relief,” she barked. “Anti depressives. Take them; you are a in traumatic state.” She paused a moment, looking deeply into his eyes. “Finally, prevention,” she said more quietly, placing her left hand now over his abdomen. The Doctor looked at her, startled and shocked. What did she mean?

The Rani touched his temple. Contact was made briefly.

“No! Oh no! You’re mistaken!” he said, panicked and in shock.

The Rani shrugged. “As you wish. No matter. You are in the wrong universe.”

“How do you know?” he demanded childishly, taking such old behaviours as a defence.

“Because I know I’m not,” she answered coldly and turned and walked back into her TARDIS without another word, certainly not a goodbye. 

“Wait!” he called.

The Rani paused and turned, “Well Doctor, I’ve not got all day. I’m certainly not giving a sentimental goodbye.”

“I’d love to hear about your latest regeneration. Watching ‘Frozen’ one time too many before your accident, were you? Evil Elsa suits you!”

“For goodness sake!” she snapped. “Child!” She stormed in and slammed the door and then seconds later the room was filled with the achingly familiar wheezing, groaning, sound and the broken furniture and lab equipment as well as the women’s clothing were rippled by the strong breeze of time and space ripped apart as the Rani’s TARDIS re-entered the Vortex.

The Doctor’s immature grin slipped from his features as the TARDIS left his temporal-spatial location and his legs buckled in pain and shock, as his adrenalin left him, and he clutched his head. “Please,” he stuttered out in a mixture of both languages to his friends. “Please. French? English? Anyone? I don’t speak Arabic or Polish.”


	21. Leaving the European Union/the EuroZone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings below

Aafreen left her son, who had slipped into a natural sleep, and crossed the room to where the Doctor sat, curled up on his thigh, silently weeping. She knelt down and put her arms around him and held him tightly.

“Of course we do,” she said in English. “I studied medicine in Chicago and specialised in Manchester. I even had a gap year job in California.”

“Doing what?” the Doctor asked carefully, his head hurting with the renewed effort of translating his thoughts and what was said to him.

Aafreen grinned. “I was doing clerical and programming work for SETI.”

“SETI?” mouthed the Doctor. “Oh! Hello Earthling, please don’t take me to your leader, especially the Chinese ones...”

Aafreen smiled and pushed her purple hijab covered forehead to the Doctor’s. “Hello alien,” she said softly. “No. Certainly not. My Aaliya and Bally know some English...”

“Lots of our school friends are British. They’re not very good at learning new languages,” Aaliya offered.

“I studied pre-med in Canada. Toronto. Plus most of my dealings with the UN is in English or French,” Aalimah added.

“My English not so good,” Suzan stuttered, but then added in perfect French, “but of course, I speak French.”

“We all speak French,” Aafreen agreed. “I remember you saying something about the time-ship translating. It wasn’t yours? It was hers?”

The Doctor shrugged. “It must have been. I can’t feel mine. Even on the other side of the planet, or solar system, once we’re in a location of space-time I should feel her. I just can’t...” he stopped, as he felt so alone and afraid without the old girl he felt he might sob.

“Which do you prefer? French or English?” Aafreen asked practically.

The Doctor shrugged.

“Right, French it is, then we don’t isolate Suzan,” she replied.

“Good,” said Suzan. “But right now, we need to get out of here as soon as possible. If you give me the keys Aafreen, I will drive Aalimah to get the clinic truck for the supplies. Then we need to talk,” she looked meaningfully at the plastic wallet sat atop the piles of boxes and crates.

*

The Doctor sat, hugging himself, next to Baltasar, while the women and girl loaded up the clinic’s van and Aafreen’s car. Aalimah had managed to get the Rani to give her antibiotics, pain relief, anaesthetics, vitamin supplements, cleaning fluids, saline solutions, universal plasma, artificial skin grafts, along with dressings and bandages and medical tape. She had also managed to get boxes of long life fruit juice and milk and boxes of tea, both mint and English breakfast, along with freeze-dried coffee. Someone, the Doctor didn’t remember who, had given him a bottle of water and told him to take the Gallifreyan meds the Rani had given him. He took the pain killers immediately, then rolled the sedative in his hands for a while, rocking and shaking, knowing that tears were silently pouring down his cheeks. Would it block the memories of the rapes, he wondered. Ordinarily, at home, for such a trauma, a psychometric counsellor would join with the one with the trauma and guide the Gallifreyan to lock away the memories in a box. He had a huge vault rather than a box in his mind, and no one had guided him, so it was rather leaky as it was. He was so tired without the exchange flow of artron energy from the TARDIS, he was so tired of being afraid, of being haunted by the memories of men using his body, of feeling hungry and lost, of being so scared for Yu. Was he alive still? He hoped so, he really did.

The Doctor swallowed the anti-depressive and looked at the third pill. Unlike the others, it was alone, not in a bottle of several doses to last a week. He looked at it. Prevention? Prevention of what? It didn’t make sense, what the Rani had shown him. He was definitely in the wrong universe. He stuffed it in his pocket, followed by the other two bottles. He’d take another dose of both tonight.

Baltasar stirred beside him, so the Doctor turned and tried to settle him, tucking his jacket back around the child.

 

*

Ishtar and Suzan brought cushions from their own apartment and everyone sat around eating a large pot of lentil and chickpea stew, bread made from the Eurozone rationed heavy, grey, flour, a salad made from tinned tomatoes and onions and yoghurt, all washed down with large quantities of mint tea. Aafreen had gone to her bedroom and talked on Skype for hours while Ishtar and Suzan had cooked and made fresh bread. As soon as they had returned, the boy settled in his bed, Sabeen curling up beside her big brother and hugging him and kissing his sleeping form, Aaliya just sitting at the end of his bed, grinning, the women had all washed and prayed before anything. The Doctor didn’t believe in anything really, had met beings that claimed to be gods, but he could see that this faith of theirs gave the women strength and taught them kindness, even after all they had been through, after their faith was perverted by others to bring nothing but death and division. He always respected the beliefs of other beings, unless it led to death and oppression and fear. He had watched the news on the TV while they had prayed, and then cooked. Now they made plans as they ate.

“You must go,” Aalimah said, who had unfailing arrived just as the food was being dished up. “A Muslim country Aafreen. A chance to practice medicine again. And your husband...”

“But...” Aafreen began, looking down at the sleeping baby in her arms; Amaal had fallen asleep at her breast.

“You said he was fine,” Aalimah said

“It’s easy for a man to say it’s fine, but really, is it?”

“Yes,” Suzan said firmly. “He loves you. He knows that you did nothing wrong. He knows the children are blameless and need love.”

Aafreen stood up, handing the sleeping Amaal to Suzan. “I’m going to see if I can message him again.” She picked up the laptop and walked off to the bedroom.

The Doctor watched all this as through a fog, a long distance away. The Rani’s medication made him numb and distant, floating somewhere not quite in the here and now. For the first time since he fell down the mountain running from the Chinese as he entered Poland he didn’t feel in pain. He also didn’t seem to really care he had been raped, beaten, mugged, and forced to prostitute himself. It was if all that had happened to some other Doctor. He didn’t worry that the Rani was doing something to him, though, he trusted her biochemistry and she had no truck with petty vendetta or hatred, or anything much apart from chemistry, biochemistry, and irritation of her peers. She had seemed genuinely horrified at how he had suffered, even if she didn’t give a fig for the same suffering of what she obviously considered lesser creatures. She had no guile though. Giving him the meds were no different from Ushas holding out a hand and pulling him to his feet and producing plasters from her utility belt for his skinned knees in the playground when they were children while she called him a clumsy fool.

He was rather clumsy in his young loom body. His body didn’t seem to always go where he wanted it to. Actually, his mouth didn’t either; he frequently got words wrong. Now alien words washed over him and he wasn’t actually sure what the women and children, as even seven year old Sabeen was joining in the conversation, were discussing. Now this would annoy the Doctor, he was far too curious. This new Doctor, who drifted on powerful meds, just let it flow.

Suddenly he was aware that they were all looking at him.

“What?” he asked, alarmed. “Sorry, I...”

“I think the medication the Rani gave him is powerful,” Aalimah said. “You probably need to sleep Doctor. We’ll ask you in the morning.” Aalimah stood and held out her hand. “Come on,” she said, trying to pull him to his feet. The Doctor stood, with her help, feeling so woozy, and let her help him walk to the back of the room where the mattress was. He lay down and let her take off his shoes and jacket and cover him with the quilt. He saw the rabbit sitting on the pillow and grabbed it, and sucked its ear. He closed his eyes and was out like a light.

 

*  
The Doctor awoke to hearing Aafreen say the dawn prayer, this time joined by her elder daughter, Aaliya, giving thanks for the safe return of her brother, no doubt. He let the musical classical Arabic wash over him, waiting until they had finished before he used the bathroom. He was desperate though, so much it hurt. But out of respect he waited.

When he came back from the bathroom he saw the boy child sitting on the end of the mattress he had been sleeping on.

“Mama says you saved my life? That you gave me back my life?” he said, seriously, in French.

The Doctor nodded, and sat, biting his lip to stop the gasp. He was in so much pain. His healing coma had only gone so far. Being free from it for a while had made it feel so much more intense. His abdomen, lower back, and legs felt like fire, and his head, neck, and face ached so much, along with his arms and shoulders.

“Well, I had help. You mother’s friend Aalimah did as much, if not more. I just remembered what was happening, that I had seen it before.”

“Will you help us again?”

“Bally?” Aafreen called from the kitchen. “He fell asleep. He doesn’t know. Leave him be. Tea Doctor?”

“Yes please,” the Doctor replied softly. “And some water. I’ll take another painkiller, but I won’t bother with the others.”

“You need to. They will make you feel worse to start with, but they will help. I promise you.”

“Did you have anything?”

“I had two one off...” she glanced at her son... “Attacks, traumas, separated by years. You’ve been through so much in such a short time.”

“Too long Aafreen. I’ve been too long. I’ve lost track. It must be over two weeks since I woke up in the New Jungle, and the Chinese must have held me for up to four days before that. I have no idea if my companion is alive, if he’s been killed, or what is happening, why I can’t feel the TARDIS. Even if I got on the train to Moscow today I’ll have to wait til next Tuesday for the Trans-Siberian Express and that’s ten days to Beijing. Is there now other way?”

“The billionaires and governments’ leaders use rocket ships, going up and over the dust and pumice clouds, but you’d need a few million Euros to spare.” Aafreen said, shrugging, approaching him with a tray containing a pot of tea and tea glasses and sugar. She looked at her son, who go up and left with not another word. He looked like he too felt numb and empty, like the Rani’s tablets had done to him.

“I need to ask you something,” Aafreen said seriously.

“Go on.”

“I’ve found my husband. Or he’s found me. He has papers waiting for us in Uzbekistan, he’s living and working in Tashkent, there’s a job for me, a government flat that goes with the hospital job, schools and nurseries and crèches, all free.”

The Doctor smiled widely. “Oh Aafreen! That’s fantastic! Brilliant! I couldn’t be happier for you!”

“He’s even got papers for Sabeen and Amaal, he says they will be his children and never know the difference. I’m worried about that, I must confess. I’ve talked to him three times now on Skype, and they’ve seen him, Sabeen has talked to him, and he’s seen Amaal. But... it must be hard. You’re a man, would you? If you had a wife, would you accept her children conceived in rape?”

“Oh Aafreen. I could say yes, but how could that reassure you? I’m not human, and my people, we don’t actually have children in the same way. We are cursed. We need technology. Sex doesn’t lead to babies, looms do, and to have a loom child together you need to be in a stable relationship, to make that choice, and together you watch it grow, and make contact, telepathic contact, as it grows on the loom. I have children, daughters, but they have two fathers. I would gladly accept a child and love it if it needed love and support, regardless of species, I can tell you that, but I can’t tell you what you need to know. Does your husband love you?”

“Yes, with all his heart I think. The hope of seeing us again kept him going through things I can’t imagine. Or, I don’t want to, to be accurate.” She lowered her voice. “Let’s say you and I are not the only ones to have suffered. It was as torture. In front of women prisoners. He told me last night.”

The Doctor grabbed Aafreen’s hand and squeezed. “You will help each other recover, and will be working, doing the jobs you trained for and love, and your children will have security and safety. You must go.”

“How can I leave Ishtar and Suzan?”

“Suzan has her head screwed on the right way, and Aalimah will look after them. You must take this chance for happiness.”

“It might take years with the Uzbeki Embassy and the UN negotiating and then the UN will have to talk to the EuroCombine Ministry for Refugees, and they will then have to talk to Uzbekistan. But the papers are waiting for me. Aalimah created fake Russian passports for all us. But we need to travel with a man, a Muslim woman and children alone, it will arouse suspicions.”

“Aafreen, I need to get to China, to Beijing and Space City and then onto Base 27 in the Sichuan province and I’ll be going further north if I travel with you, entirely the wrong way, it will already take me ten days, but if I go via Tashkent...”

“No. No. We’ll go to Moscow, the Tashkent train runs twice a day. It takes three days. You need to put me on the train as my brother and my husband will meet me the other end. I was going to drive, but I just want to get there. I love my car, it’s taken us all the way from Homs to here, it’s kept us safe, Sabeen was born in it, but... but it’s only a car. Suzan is going to have it, it might make it easier to get Ishtar to get out of the apartment.”

“She came out to rescue your son, to stop the Mark of the Rani... that’s progress, isn’t it?”

“Will you?” Aafreen demanded, getting straight to the point.

“Yes. It seems we are going the same way. Aalimah got the Rani to do me a passport too you say?”

“Yes.” Aafreen got up and walked over to the small box she used as an occasional table and picked up a dark wallet and threw it down on the mattress. The Doctor picked it up; it was a Russian passport, with Russian characters, although some were translated into English, Arabic, and Mandarin. “Dr. Yahya Haddad,” the Doctor read, laughing.

“The Rani said you would appreciate it,” Aafreen said dryly. “Now I must get the children ready for school and go to work. We will pack and leave tonight. Aalimah is driving us to Warsaw for the ten o’clock train tonight. Would you like some bread and tinned fruit with your tea? I have a few dates left too. We might as well eat up what I have.”

“Thank you Aafreen. Thank you for all your help.”

Aafreen smiled so happily. “You gave me back my son, you are helping me get to my husband. It is I who should thank you.”

 

*

 

Aafreen was sitting reading, the public bathroom was clean and there were few women in, it was the lull after lunchtime. She was feeling guilty about leaving her employer in the lurch, but she had to sneak out and disappear, another missing refugee no one cared enough to look for. She hoped the women she shared the job with could cover her three days until he found someone. Whatever she did she did to the best of her ability.

The door burst open and Aaliya rushed in, panting heavily, as if she had rushed up the five flights of the fire stairs from the back service alley.

“Mama! Mama!” she puffed out, doubling over, wheezing.

“What’s wrong? Why aren’t you at school? Is it Bally?” It had been her son’s first day back at school. She had told the school he had had glandular fever weeks ago, hoping to be able to get him back from the mark and his sleep deprivation, she had never given up hope.

“No. There are police, looking everywhere. They are with Chinese soldiers and translators in black suits with sunglasses. Who needs sunnies, it’s so dark all the time. I thought... I thought...”

“They are looking for the Doctor!” Aafreen pulled out her phone and began to call Suzan immediately. There was no answer. She tried Ishtar, and still no answer. Aalimah would be at the clinic, so there was no point calling her. She grabbed her coat and bag and ran for the door. Her daughter followed.

 

*

 

The Doctor had just returned to the flat, he had been shopping. His rapists hadn’t mugged him, he had just remembered the money, and bought himself a thick jumper to wear over the jeans, as he felt wrong with a suit jacket and jeans. He also bought tea, powered milk, instant noodles, and biscuits and crackers, for his journey to China, replacing all he had bought back in Brussels. He had found an outlet that sold clothes and sundries for soft toys – you had to love human capitalism at times! – and bought Fizzallundra a brush and a little pink dress to cover her oil and blood stains and stitches. Suzan had done her best, but Fizzy was not the pristine rabbit from the toyshop in Brussels. Once he was alone again he was afraid of the nightmares and flashbacks and thought he might need her again. As long as he didn’t start talking to her out loud again he’d be fine!

He had just thrown his purchases onto the mattress and was emptying his travel bag to repack nicely when the door burst open and Ishtar came rushing in, baby on her hip, looking scared and flustered. Her phone was in her other hand.

“I’ve just heard from Aafreen. The place is crawling with police and Chinese soldiers.”

The Doctor dropped the shirt he’d been folding. “What?”

“Quick! How quickly can you shave and make-up your face?” Ishtar demanded, positively pushing him to the bathroom.

“What?” he asked again.

“No time. Shave closely and make-up your eyes nice, okay. Leave the rest to me. Aafreen and Aaliya are on their way back.”

The Doctor did as he was told. While he did so Ishtar, and Suzan who had joined her, pushing Amaal in her buggy, quickly shoved all his belongings into Baltasar’s room and covered them with a quilt. As he came out of the room, Aaliya smashed the door open and fell into the room, breathing heavily, having run up the stairs, taking two steps at a time.

“They’re doing our block, door to door,” she panted out.

“This on. Now!” Suzan said, tossing the Doctor a long, lacy mauve cardigan. He pulled it on over his purple tee shirt and black jeans. Ishtar came up to and started to wrap a long dark purple scarf over his hair, and tucking it under his chin. “More than one,” Suzan said, holding a lilac scarf. “The English, their trend is for layers and layers, making your head look huge.”

Aafreen came in just as Suzan and Ishtar had transformed him into a hijab wearing woman. “They’re the floor below. Quick, Doctor, sit down, sit on your feet and pull those sleeves down, hide your hands.”

Ishtar sat down next to him, and Suzan put the television on and then lifted Amaal out of the buggy and placed the child on the Doctor’s lap. Aaliya squatted down next to him and picked up a colouring book. Suzan sank down on a floor cushion and Aafreen went into the kitchen and began to chop onions and put a pan on, as if she was cooking lunch.

Less that five minutes later there was a loud, insistent, banging on the door and Aafreen quickly threw the onions into the pan and went to open it. She feinted shock, surprise that had no guilt.

“Sorry madam,” the Polish policeman said, speaking slowly, in case she couldn’t understand Polish well. “We are looking for a terrorist. He was reported hiding here, on this refugee housing project.”

“There’s no men here,” she said, and stood back. The policeman came in, followed by two Chinese soldiers, who were casually holding their guns, and a Chinese woman in a black trouser suit with, as Aaliya said, sunglasses, and a laptop. One of the soldiers spoke to her, and she then turned to the policeman. “Who lives here?” he demanded.

“I do, with my daughter, Aaliya,” she indicated her daughter, “and my son and younger daughter. They are at school. Aaliya was sick today, else I’d be at work.”

“And these people?”

“Suzan and Ishtar, my next door neighbours, and Ishtar’s son. This is Sarah, she lives on the top floor –” Aafreen knew that a flat on the top floor had been empty for weeks “-moved in two days ago. Relocated from the New Jungle. She doesn’t speak Polish yet.”

“British white Muslim?”

“Yeah, convert. That’s her baby. Her husband died in a fight, and she was relocated. We all speak English, so we’re helping her adjust. Dr Nasser introduced us.”

All the local police knew Dr Aalimah Nasser. He turned to the Doctor. “What’s you name?” he demanded in English.

“Sarah Jane Smith,” the Doctor answered softly, as high as he could get his voice.

“Okay,” the officer said.

“If you see him,” the Chinese woman said, opening her laptop and turning it. There was a picture of the Doctor, dressed in a striped brown suit and an open necked blue shirt over a brown button detail tee shirt, his hair backcombed and gelled up, his face free of bruises. He was smiling a genuine smile that reached his eyes. The picture had obviously been captured from CCTV.

All the women, including the Doctor, peered at the picture and hid any sign of recognition. Aafreen repeated everything the police officer and Chinese woman said in English.

“There is a reward. But do not approach him. He is dangerous.”

Everyone nodded and made murmurs of agreement. The policeman and the Chinese left, slamming the door behind them. Everyone let out a breath they didn’t know they had been holding. The Doctor brought his hand up to pull off the scarves. Ishtar stilled his hand.

“Wait,” she said. “Let them get out of the building and back in the car first.”

*

Ishtar turned away from the window, where she stood, hidden behind the tattered scarves used for curtains. “They’ve gone. They must be pinging the chip under your tattoo, but there isn’t enough cell towers here to get a more accurate fix.”

“Right. Thank God. I’m going to go back to work; I don’t want to leave my last day in a mess,” Aafreen replied, picking up her bag. “Aaliya, please go pick up Sabeen from kindergarten and take her out for a cake. Meet up with Bally and the three of you back here at six, okay?”

“Yes Mama,” Aaliya said instinctively, not really listening, watching the Doctor pull off the scarves and cardigan. He looked odd now, covered in layers of mascara. She had realised he used of a touch of eye make-up, but it was subtle and she assumed it meant something different on his planet. But he had made his eyes up like one of the English ‘chavs’, the worst, most insufferable, uneducated, refugees in the project, the ones who had voted for their own oppression, white children of immigrants.

“Go. Go on, school is out now!” Aafreen snapped.

“Okay...”

“See you later Aaliya,” the Doctor said, twinkling her a smile.

“Please get rid of that mascara,” she said.

“Don’t you like it? I call it Mascara ala Rosa,” he said grinning widely. “It’s a tribute to a friend.”

“Was she called Sarah Jane?”

“Oh no, she’s another friend. They didn’t like each other, actually. Go on, little Sabeen will be waiting.”

“See you!”

 

*

By eight o’clock Aafreen was finally back from work, and all her and her children’s belongings were packed into three suitcases, two backpacks, the rest in bags on the tray under the buggy seat and hanging off its handles. Suzan, Ishtar, and the Doctor had packed everything. Ishtar had cooked a large pan of lentil and vegetable pilaf and a sweet one of dried fruit and nuts, as well as salads made of chickpeas and fava beans and tomatoes and packed it all into cool bag and it was waiting in the fridge. She also made up two flasks of mint tea. The children had sat watching the TV, which they were giving to Ishtar and Suzan. The Doctor had cleansed his face of all the make-up and decided not to put his own on, he was supposed to be the human Arab brother of Aafreen. His hair was flopped forward, he had pushed it up to confront the Rani, but he couldn’t be bothered with it now. He was wearing his new forest green fisherman knit jersey. He’d packed his bag with his clean underwear, socks, and changes of top, along with the food and drink and Fizzallundra his rabbit, dressed it in her new dress, her ears tied together with a pink ribbon. His bag sat among the Homsis luggage. Now Aafreen was back, they were waiting for Aalimah.

Aalimah arrived ten minutes later and there were many tears, as Ishtar and Suzan hugged Aafreen and the children, and Aafreen and the children also kissed Ishtar’s little son Ali. Then began the trek down the stairs to the car. The Doctor carried the buggy and ran back up for the heavy suitcases. He had felt ashamed of himself that the human woman had done all the lifting with the supplies Aalimah had conned out of the Rani, and although the Rani’s medication made him woozy and tired, he was in far less pain.

Once the car was loaded, there were more hugs, and tears, and promises to message each other as soon as possible and keep in touch. Promises made and broken so many times, in so many refugees’ camps and settlements, the Doctor guessed at. His entire life since he’d left Gallifrey had been one of goodbyes to people he loved, people who had helped him, saved him, died for him...

He put his hand to his cheek. It was wet with tears again. Surprisingly, Suzan enfolded him in a hug. “God go with you, may He protect you and help you. I will pray for your and your companion’s safely.”

The Doctor nodded into the folds of her long black dress and scarf and they let go. He shook Ishtar’s gently hand and got into the back, with the children, and Amaal was handed to him to hold. She was awake and quite happy and began to play with his fringe, tugging his hair. He smiled and imitated birdsong for her, and she laughed happily. Behind them the luggage had somehow all fitted into the boot.

“Okay,” Aafreen said, and pulled out the clutch and released the handbrake and started her last ever drive in the car that had given her family so much, got them to safety countless times, since they had fled the siege of Homs seven years before.

*

Just over an hour later they pulled up outside the impressive frontage of Warsaw Central Station in a drop–off bay. Amaal had fallen asleep in the Doctor’s arms and the cessation of movement awoke her and she grizzled unhappily. The Doctor stood, rocking her in his arms, as Aalimah and Aafreen unpacked the car with Baltasar and Aaliya’s help. Sabeen was also grumpy; she had already fallen asleep in the car. She clung to the Doctor’s long black coat tails and sniffed and snuffled into them.

More hugs, more tears, more promises, this time from the Doctor, too.

“I can come back for you Aalimah. When I have my TARDIS. All of time and space?”

Aalimah made a scoffing noise, “And who would run my clinic?”

“There are many people, I’m sure,” he replied.

“Yeah,” she said cynically, stepping away from the hug. “See ya Doctor, wouldn’t want to be ya. Good luck!”

He turned and went to follow the Homsis into the train station, as he did so he heard the car engine rev and the sounds of loud thrash metal with Arabic lyrics start up.

Aafreen was trying not to cry as he joined them. He put his arm around her and she leaned into him. “It’s just a car, just a thing, but...” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. She visibly shuddered in an attempt to pull herself together. “Right, you go get the children some pop and us some tea and also get some bottles of water, I’ll check out where we go for customs and immigration and let’s pray the Rani’s come through...” she held up her hands with her fingers crossed, and walked off to the information kiosk, pushing the buggy, calling behind her, “Meet under that clock.” 

The Doctor shouldered his bag and then took the handles of the biggest two suitcases and tugged. “Right, you heard your mother,” he said, “Who speaks the best Polish?”

* 

Fifteen minutes later they were in a queue, the Doctor clutching the four fake passports and two child travel documents and the tickets.

Five minutes later they were through, collectively breathing out with relief, and searching for their berth on the sleeper train. Unlike the sleek electric ones the Doctor had travelled on throughout the EuroZone, this was an old class diesel, a monster from the 1970s, clunky and smelly and glorious. It also required a sharp climb up steep steps to get in. He lifted in the luggage and then he and Bally struggled with the buggy, while Aafreen held the baby.

The berth was tiny, two bunk beds with a small gap between them. Aafreen sent the children the carriage’s bathroom to brush their teeth while she made the beds up. While she did so the Doctor stacked the luggage under the window and put the buggy between the beds, securing it as much as he could so Amaal would sleep safely. He then pulled off his coat and shoes and climbed up to the top of the left hand bed. Bally would take the other top bunk, and the girls the bottom, sharing. Aafreen would sleep under him.

He lay on his back and put his hands above his head and slowed his breathing, trying to figure out what was going on with his body. He heard the children come back and Aafreen read them a story, Bally and Aaliya pretending it was just for Sabeen. She read in Arabic, so he couldn’t understand, but he had seen the pictures, it was Disney’s Frozen.

The Rani knew something. What was wrong with him? What did she know? His back ached so much and he was so tired.

And there it was again! That sudden, unbearable, pressure on his bladder. He’d had to go again just before they left the flat, had to get Aafreen to stop the car twice, went before they got into the queue for boarding.

He slipped down the bunk and rushed to the bathroom. The train had left the station and he stumbled as it kept crossing points. When he got back the children were all asleep.

“Are you okay?” Aafreen whispered in English.

“I’m fine,” he whispered back.

“No fever? I’m guessing that would mean a drop in temperature for your species? Pain? I’m wondering if you’ve got an infection? Or your kidneys were injured when you were attacked? Do you have kidneys?”

“Yes. And I’m more in tune with my body, my kidneys haven’t been injured since when I woke up in the New Jungle, nearly two weeks ago, and I went into a healing coma, so that’s sorted. My back aches, though,” he hissed, not really wanting to talk about this, but needing a second opinion.

“Abdomen too? Over your bladder?”

“A little bit, tiny bit really, but only when I want to go. Which, as you’ve obviously noticed, is a lot.”

“Fever?” Aafreen asked again.

“No. I feel cold, but I think it’s just that I’m tired.”

“And it is cold. Colder still when we get to Moscow. I’m worried that maybe your prostrate was damaged, with the rapes, but without access to a scan, that is something we won’t know.”

“I’m fine. The main damage would have been repaired, along with the artery, wouldn’t it? I just need to urinate a lot. Which, I’m telling you, is weird for me, and really boring, but it’s no big deal. Stop it Aafreen. You don’t need to worry about me. You’re going to see your husband. Your husband! Think of that. He loves you.”

Aafreen couldn’t help but think the Doctor sounded a bit wistful. “Your friend, your companion? He’s your lover, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” the Doctor said sadly.

“He’ll be fine. You will rescue him. From the stories you’ve told us, I have no doubt. What does it say on the pill bottles the Rani gave you? It was all circles and squiggles to me.”

“The pain killers say, one or two to be taken morning and night, middle dose allowed by no more than four a day. The other ones say one twice a day, no more.”

“The third one? Was it an antiviral or antibiotic? Could you have an infection, despite no fever?”

“I don’t think so, I’m normally very aware if my body is under attack. Go to sleep Aafreen, you’ll be alone again soon, you’ll need energy to cope with your children on the Tashkent train.”

“It could be a side affect of your meds,” Aafreen said, yawning. The Doctor heard her turn in the bottom bed as it made both beds creak. She yawned again. “Good night Doctor. Sleep well.”

“That will be it then. Probably. Tiny bit. Maybe,” the Doctor said unhappily to himself, placing his hands over his abdomen. He closed his eyes and dreamt of the Master, of sleeping in a tent on the floor, forced to eat out of dog bowl, of being aged, frail, controlled, and alone, of his DNA being nothing but a toy to the Master, as was his body, de-aged and played with, night after night...

His eyes snapped open and he gasped. Great, not only recent rape trauma flashbacks. That was just brilliant, that was! He lay and concentrated on his breathing and the rhythm of the train on the tracks. He had to think of something nice...

 

...“Commander Chan Yu! You amaze me! I could kiss you!”

“Not now! But I’m holding you to that Doctor?”

“But the Dalek, where did you learn to fight like that?”

Yu grinned, “The Chinese Army and Circus School. In fact,” the mad, crazy Disney fan that Yu was, said, “all in a song break!”...

 

...“Shall we go bed? I’d love to take you to bed Doctor...?” Yu had sounded so hopeful, so nervous, as he looked down on the Doctor sprawled half underneath him across the console, having just been kissed so wonderfully...

 

The Doctor rolled over onto his side and curled up into the foetal position and let out a sob, “Yu! Please still be alive,” he whispered, anguished.

 

*

Yu was at that moment very alive, sopping wet, and in pain in many places. “You don’t get it!” he yelled at his torturers, “I came home to share it all willingly, a loyal Chinese citizen. But after all you’ve done, you’ll get nothing from me! Nothing!” and he laughed hysterically, desperately.

His interrogator stared deeply into his eyes, “So you do have things to tell us. Alien tech and knowledge?”

Yu spat into his face. “I know my own research, you moron. I can get you to bloody Mars faster than the Indians. You just have to treat me as the scientist and commander I was!”

Yu was not in the least surprised to be knocked to the floor by a heavy backhander.

“Lock him up again. Leave him be. He’s bait now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Linguists might spot the joke in the alias...
> 
>  
> 
> TW: the Doctor flashbacks not only to his previous attacks as he travelled through Europe but to what the Master put him through on-board the Valiant in ‘The Sound of Drums’/’The Last of the Time Lords’  
> TW: Torture, violence, implied water boarding of Chan Yu


	22. Moscow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings below

The Doctor had finally dozed for about an hour. He woke to hear Aafreen softly recite the dawn prayer, lying on her bunk. He felt the urgent pressure on his bladder again and slipped down from his top bunk hoping his casting a shadow wasn’t disrespectful of his friend’s beliefs and rushed for the bathroom. There was a queue. They were due into Moscow soon. As he queued, there was an almighty squeal of breaks and the smell of burning rubber and break fluid and the train shuddered abruptly to a sudden halt. The Doctor fell forward and was caught by the large, muscle-bound, man in front of him, built like a prizefighter, or perhaps a hod carrier or other building site labourer, all shoulders and biceps. The Doctor bit his lip and concentrated on preventing a terribly embarrassing accident and looked up, smiling slightly. The man’s nose was broken, and he looked down, and caught sight of the tattoo and dropped the Doctor like a hot brick. The Doctor stumbled onto his knees and immediately gasped, doubling over. If he didn’t get to the toilet immediately he was going to embarrass himself like a tiny Time Tot! What the hell was wrong with him?

A woman with a small child came out of the bathroom and the Doctor leapt up and pushed his way to the front of the queue, muttering ‘sorry’ over and over in English.

While he was washing his hands, an announcement came over the tannoy in Russian, then Polish, then finally English. The train ahead had struck a person and there would be a slight delay. 

He went back to their compartment, to find the children awake and the baby being fed. They went off to use the bathroom and the Doctor sat down beside Aafreen.

“Okay?” she asked.

“Fine,” lied the Doctor. No point telling her how close he came to wetting himself and how that was just not possible.

“I hope the delay isn’t long, we have two hours to get in and out and back in immigration and out on the Tashkent train,” Aafreen said, holding up her phone, still displaying the page showing the Tashkent morning train timetable. “Oh well, God will be done, we’ll make it. Can you take Amaal and I’ll sort us some breakfast.”

Amaal was awake, bored and wiggly. The Doctor stood and clambered over the luggage and buggy and pulled up the blind so they could look out of the window. He muttered to her, pointing out all they could see – sickly trees, brown grass, thin sheep. The sky was as black, as dusty, as ashy, as it was in Europe. In the distance a roadway could be seen, so the Doctor started pointing to the cars and their colours. Amaal grinned and pressed her fat little baby hand to the glass.

The children came back, and they all shared some of the sweet pilaf Ishtar had made for them and drank cold tea from the flasks.

Time went by, they played snap and happy families with an old pack of children’s cards to stop the children growing bored, Aafreen checking the time on her phone more and more frequently as time went on and the train remained stationary.

With a sudden almighty jolt and a loud whistle from the engine, the train finally lurched into life. Aafreen worriedly looked at her phone again.

“Don’t worry, we will make it,” the Doctor reassured her, touching her knee.

*

They had thirty-five minutes to clear customs and immigration, locate the right platform, re-enter passport control and get to the train. There was a slight contretemps at the barrier, but the Doctor was allowed through to the platform. Quickly, he ran up and down the length of the train, located the compartment that matched the Homsi ticket and lifted the suitcases, buggy, and baggage into it. He jumped down as the first whistle was sounding. Aafreen pulled him into a hug and kissed his cheek, while the Doctor hugged her and Amaal back, and then she climbed up onto the ancient train, half a century or more, a chugging old thing, beautiful it was. Aaliya and Sabeen squeezed him tightly, and then Baltasar joined the hug.

“Thank you Doctor,” he said hurriedly, then climbed onto the train. The second whistle blew and the girls reluctantly let go and clambered aboard.

“Thank you for saving my life. I’ll never forget you!” the Doctor called as the doors automatically began to close with a hiss.

“You saved my son so we’re even. We’ll never forget you either. Peace be with you Doctor. God go with you. Salaamu...”

With a mass of noise and smell the train began to pull away, to make its epic three-day journey across Russian Europe and Asia and into Uzbekistan. The Doctor ran along side waving at the children until it picked up speed.

As he did so he was watched by a woman dressed in black, covered in a long black trench coat, her hair pulled off her face in a functional ponytail, her eyes covered in sunglasses, an oddity in the dusty dark of post-Icelandic Europe.

*

The Doctor walked through the station slowly, feeling lost. Grand architecture and people rushing past surrounded him, but he didn’t notice anything. He had been so close to quitting after that last attack and Aafreen and her family and friends had literally saved him. Bizarrely, a confrontation with the Rani hadn’t even helped him feel like the Doctor, her brisk, practical, regret and compassion had nearly undone him. He sat on a bench and felt like fishing out the toy rabbit and hugging it tightly. He began to rock slightly.

How long he would have sat there if the urgent needs of his bladder hadn’t intervened, he didn’t know, but he had to get up and find a Gents very fast.

“You working?” a man asked him in English as he washed his hands. The Doctor looked puzzled, so the man pointed to the tattoo. “I know what that is in Europe.”

“No. No. I’m on holiday,” the Doctor said, and grabbing his bag, rushed out of the public toilets and made for the first station exit he could find.

He walked and walked, turning left at random, muttering to himself about human sexuality and their destruction of the environment until he found himself back outside the grand main entrance of the station.

“Chin up Doctor,” he muttered, and went to the ticket hall, which was as beautiful and as huge and as clean as a Georgian ballroom. But a brief inquiry revealed that the money he had wouldn’t get him as far as Beijing with enough left for food, let alone for money in China. He left, frightened, thinking of other ways to find money that didn’t involve robbing a bank or mugging someone. He considered pick pocketing, he was sure he was nimble-fingered enough, except, these days, since... what had happened, his hands seemed to shake.

He found himself standing outside a cheap, sleazy, looking hotel. It had a sign that said ‘English spoken’ so he decided to book a room for three night, he had a weekend and a Monday and most of the Tuesday to wait before the Trans-Siberian Express left. He had considered chopping the journey up, getting as far as Siberia, but he realised he’d have to wait on the border for the Express to cross into Mongolia anyway.

Mongolia. He’d not been there for centuries, not since he and Susan had travelled with Marco Polo with Barbara and Ian.

Susan...

“Come on Doctor, pull yourself together, we’ll get all the way across to China, we’ve done it before. Ian and I will look after you,” the Doctor imagined Barbara saying practically, holding his arm.

“Yu’s a survivor. Plus he’s bait for you,” he imagined Ian adding, putting his arm across his shoulders.

So, supported by imaginary companions, the Doctor walked up the stairs and booked a single room. The owner looked at the tattoo that showed as the sleeves wriggled up as the Doctor fumbled through his bag for the cash the German had given him.

“No customers, joy boy, or you’re out. And Roubles only.”

“I, er...”

“There’s a Bureau de Change across the street. Leave the bag as security and I won’t give the room away.”

The Doctor nodded and headed for the door, still imagining Barbara and Ian walking either side of him, supporting. His imagination was running overload in keeping company, as Ace added behind him,

“What a complete div, pretty Professor.”

Wait? Pretty?

Ian, Barbara, and Ace vanished from his imaginary sides in a puff of fluffy (imaginary) clouds and the sounds of balloons popping.

“I’m mad,” the Doctor said aloud to himself, and rubbed at his face with the flat of his hand.

*

Two hours later, in his small room – plugs and light bulbs extra – the Doctor lay on his small cot bed staring at the cracked and dirty ceiling. He watched a spider weave a web and thought of Robert Bruce and his inspiration.

“I am trying,” the Doctor whispered to the spider. He was rather afraid that prostitution was still the only thing open to him, despite finally leaving the EU.

A sudden noise startled him and he sat up. A note had been pushed under the door. He got up and picked it up. It was scented lilac paper and written in Gallifreyan, in what looked very like his own hand. He dropped it, momentarily startled, and then sank to the floor and read it.

A name of a bar. Directions. A time. Nothing else

*

The Doctor entered the door warily. Although he was now in Russia and the blasted app not officially registered, he had already sadly and scarily realised enough men still knew what the tattoo meant and had the app grafted onto their Russian enabled phones. He leant on the doorframe for a few moments and surveyed the bar. In it were mostly men. He had wondered if it was a secret gay bar, but it was also near the new train dockyards so might explain the number of labouring men. He took a deep breath and centred himself. He was seriously beginning to feel as much fear and loathing for male humans as much as he did Martians, or even Daleks of any gender, if they had gender, did Daleks have gender...? He’d never asked. Well, he wouldn’t, too busy defeating them, or not defeating them, fighting them anyway...

Okay, human men were not on a Dalek level. They were on a...

Ow!

They were on a groping level! The Doctor froze, not even breathing, and then gave the man who pinched his arse a withering glare. The man laughed and knocked back his vodka.

“How much darling?” he asked in suddenly very clearly understood Russian.

The Doctor continued to glare hostilely, frozen now by the confusion that something was translating again, but again he knew it wasn’t his own TARDIS, although given that the Russian man sounded Cockney, this one had his TARDIS’s ironic touch. The number of TARDISes told him again he was in another universe, either that or this was time gone wrong, but since it was with more Time Lords, he so wanted it to be right. Unless he was here, of course? The note...?

“Oi! Fatso fur ball. Can’t you see he don’t want you!” a woman shouted across the room. She was propping up the end of the bar, a vodka and coke in front of her, her hair pulled off her face in a functional ponytail. She was also dressed in a sleek black one piece, the kind that is woven and laced with kevla and carbonite, the kind of body armour not due to be seen by human technology for another three centuries, at least. More temporal infraction, or... she turned her head to answer the choice misogynistic swearfest that had just poured from the man who assaulted him. It couldn’t be, could it?

The woman in the armour strode up to the man who assaulted him, a battered bomber jacket emblazoned and festooned with many, many badges over it, slung over her shoulder. She kneed his assailant in the groin and then head butted him.

“Beat it sleazebag. Scum balls like you aren’t wanted here. Wanna still take me on slime ball. Yeah, I get he’s chipped, but here’s a tip donkey breath, prozzies can say no, so take a hike,” and she stomped on his foot with her, what looked like, twentieth fifth century Dalek Killer Elite Corps uniform boots. The man left, followed by his two mates, to the sound of the drunken roar of the few people left in the bar.

As she turned to walk back to the bar the Doctor grabbed her arm. “Ace! ACE!”

She whipped round, “Yeah, do I know you? Oh, I get it, my jacket. Or, as we mere mortals say, ‘ Thank you Ace’.”

“Hace. Ace. Oh Ace. Brilliant, amazing, fantastic, brave Ace. Thank you. It’s so good to see you. Is Hex here? Where did you get the gear? Suits you. Oh definitely, suits you. No one kills Daleks like you,” he knew he was grinning like a loon but couldn’t stop it. Ace was looking at him coolly. She turned and walked back to her drink. He followed like a puppy dog, still grinning inanely. “Thank you. You have no idea the hell I’ve been through since woke up with this chip and tattoo.”

“Look mate,” Ace said, leaning back on the bar, picking up her drink, “I don’t know any Hex, and I don’t know you.”

“Ace, it’s me. And you must know Hex, you must be all of twenty five by now? My Ace, my best Ace...” the Doctor’s lunatic grin began to falter, “unless... wait! I get it now. I have moved sideways. Have I? Or at least... But before or after Yu? Is he here? Am I here?”

Ace moved forward and swiftly grabbed his left wrist. “How the hell do you get someone chip you pretty boy?” She felt his pulse. “Pretty boy young Doctor? What the hell is this, mid life crisis?”

The Doctor beamed his crazy, happy, smile, “Oh yes Ace, absolutely Ace, mid life crisis, more end of life crisis now, this is my twelfth regeneration. Do you like it?”

“I don’t do pretty boys, and you don’t do girls. You’re in a bit of cocktail pickle aren’t you?”

“Oh yes,” the Doctor said, still grinning. “But now you’re here.”

“Woah there fluffy, I’m doing stuff for the Professor, proper grown up stuff... s’sh.” Ace stopped herself and put her finger to her lips, removing her other hand from his wrist, which she had continued to hold. 

“Hello Ace, who’s this then?”

The Doctor turned to look at the woman who had spoken. She was taller and older than Ace, with short hair, fringe artfully playing about her face, dressed in grey combats and a purple silk blouse and cashmere cardigan, a multipurpose military bag slung over her shoulder. He had no idea who she was.

“Dunno. Stopped some greasy sleaze monkey pawing him. Think he said his name was John Smith or something. John, this is my good friend Professor Bernice Summerfield.”

“Call me Benny, John,” Benny slurred, taking his hand and caressing it.

“Um...?” the Doctor looked to Ace for help.

“Benny, you don’t wanna do this.”

“Come on Ace, the Doctor’s doing whatever he’s doing and we have a few hours R&R. I say bingo. What’s your poison John?”

“Just a glass of water, please.”

“Aw, you’re no fun you are!” It was clear that the woman, Benny, had been drinking for some considerable time. She put her hand on his chest and splayed her fingers.

“Perhaps a cup of tea? That would be nice. Yeah. Thank you,” he replied, looking at Ace for further rescue.

“Benny, get us another, yeah, and tea for the... for John. Ta.” Benny swerved away from the corner to the main part of the bar to order. “Okay Doctor, sorry about that. Look Professor, I can’t do anything. Laws of Time or something, but here, you’ll be needing this...” Ace quickly grabbed her jacket and fished about the pockets. She produced two plastic cards, and handed them to him, “These are money cards, kind of like gift cards, but for anything, there’s a mil on each, one in Roubles and one in Yen, okay? At least you don’t have to act on that tattoo then. Whatever scumbag who did that, did it to break you. You’re stronger, right? So much stronger. Oh God, come here!” and Ace pulled him into a hug. “So much taller and skinnier now,” she said, pulling away and punching him the arm. As they pulled apart they saw Benny standing in front of them, a glass of tea, one of Vodka and coke, and one of neat Vodka, on a tray.

She placed the tray on the bar behind them as she hissed, “Woah there Ace, he’s my boy.”

Ace turned to answer, but the Doctor finally found his voice and he had had enough, “Point one, I’m nobody’s boy, point two, if I was, Ace is my knight in kevlar, carbonite, and Dalekaniun, armour who charged to my rescue, point three, I’m not a boy at all, I’m over 1500 years old, although you won’t catch me admitting to being over 900 but there’s no point with you, Ace, is there, and point four... Point four!” he shouted, as he swung around and pointed at Benny, sounding more and more faux cockney, “Who the hell are you?”

Ace grinned widely and quipped, “Nice to see you’ve finally leant to talk proper Professor!”

“Cruk. He’s the Doctor! You’re the Doctor? No way. Ace, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Look, who ARE you? You act like you’re my companion but I have no idea who you are. I don’t recognise you! I don’t remember you! Who are you?”

Benny began to look upset. The Doctor was staring at her intently. Now he’d got over the shock of being goosed by a drunk and was no longer babbling she could feel him, the Doctoriness of his gaze. Why didn’t he know her? “I’m Benny. Professor Bernice Summerfield. A fake professor of archaeology. We met on Heaven, remember? The Hoothi? Ace leaving us? Coming back after fighting Daleks? You must remember...”

“No. I remember Hex. Ace and Hex. Hex... died, and... wait! Oh! It must be!” the Doctor held the back of his neck as if afraid his head might fall off with all the brain activity. “We’re... I’m...”

“Parallel worlds Doctor. I’m not really your Ace. Not quite. Sideways in time.”

“Yeah, sideways timey-whimy stuff. Definitely.”

“Timey-what? Do you ever listen to yourself Professor?”

“The question still is, though, is...?” the Doctor began, but Ace interrupted him again,

“Who moved sideways? This doesn’t seem the right universe to us. Is Earth supposed to be like this to you?”

The Doctor shook his head. “No. No at all. Nor even like a parallel world I visited recently either. That one had zeppelins,” he added, aside, grinning again at Ace. Clever, clever Ace.

“Aw, Professor, you got to go to a steam punk universe. How cool is that?”

“There were Cybermen.”

“Not that cool then. So this one isn’t yours?”

“Don’t think so, no. He sent you, didn’t he?”

Ace shrugged and downed her drink, before grabbing Benny. “Time to go Benny. Nice seeing you Professor. Glad I could get rid of the creep for you. You look after yourself; don’t get down okay? Don’t let them break you. We’ve gotta go now, you know how it is, people to do, places to see, Doctors to appease. Take care yeah,” she said as she pulled at Benny some more, who got the message.

“Bye Doctor, sorry about, you know...” and she ran after Ace, who was already by the door. 

It might have been his imagination, but across the bar, the Doctor was sure he heard Ace whisper into her 25th century coms throat mike, “The pretty bird has landed.”

 

*

The Doctor stayed long enough to drink his tea. He felt braver, stronger, more like the Doctor, more like himself. Good old Ace. Wonderful, amazing, brilliant, Ace. And interesting, fascinating, Benny. Professor Bernice Summerfield was it? But no Hex. Interesting, to know where two universes diverged on your own timelines so precisely.

He had to use the facilities yet again! He might be feeling a strong echo of himself behind all the rape trauma, but there was still something physically (or functionally, he hadn’t ruled out the psychosomatic) wrong with him that he couldn’t work out.

As he left, he failed to notice the man that Ace had vanquished put down his glass and followed him out into the now dark alley that the bar opened out onto. He noticed nothing until he was grabbed from behind, swung about and smashed face first into a wall.

“We have unfinished business bitch,” the man hissed in his ear.

“Let go!” the Doctor yelled. “Help!” he screamed. He wasn’t going to be raped again if he could help it. He struggled but all that earned him was his face smashed into the wall again. He tried to elbow and kick back, but he was pushed to the floor and kicked. As he curled up to protect himself he could he heard the sound of running booted feet and the man was pulled off him and he heard the sounds of a very violent scuffle. He tried to stand but stumbled and instead curled up into a tighter ball and bit back a sob. He heard the sound of bones breaking and curled into himself, panting with pain, as he clearly heard his assailant retreat. He looked up. Ace stood over to him, nursing a sore, bloodied, knuckle.

“Are you alright?” he asked, standing up and leaning against the wall, cradling his sore abdomen in his hands.

“Yeah, not my blood, no bones broken. Can’t say the same for the bastard’s nose. You alright?”

“I’m always alright, Ace,” said an oh so familiar voice, a cheerful Scottish brogue, as a short man stepped out of the shadows. “Aren’t I?”

The Doctor looked down at his younger self, looking up at him with inquiring blue eyes. “No, not quite.”

“Did Ace give you the money?” his younger self asked.

“Oh yes. Thank you. Should we be doing this?” the Doctor replied, to himself.

“Not really,” his younger, shorter, version shook his head, grinning a charming, snaggle-toothed grin up at him. “I’ve booked you a berth on the Trans-Siberian, a first class sleeper compartment all to yourself. Pick the ticket up when you go. John Smith, Dr John Smith. Do you have passable ID?” 

“I’ve a passport in just such a name, a Chinese one,” the Doctor replied, smiling at himself, crossing his fingers, as he was yet to check the lining of his bag since he arrived in Moscow. If not he had the Russian one the Rani supplied. That was sort of John Smith.

“Excellent,” his past self said self-assuredly. He remembered so clearly the confidence and power he had had as Time’s Champion.

“Although, since we are crossing time streams, can’t you just take me there in your TARDIS,” the Doctor couldn’t help but ask. 

“Oh no, I don’t think so. You’re centuries ahead of me; don’t want the old girl knowing my future. Besides, we have things to investigate,” was his past self’s firm reply.

“The temporal shift, the error, the wrongness of this time, do you mean?” the Doctor guessed. He didn’t remember, as really this wasn’t quite him. It was unfair; the Blinovitch Limitation Effect should give him the advantage. Trust his seventh persona to still maintain the upper hand!

“At least he didn’t say timey whimy this time,” Ace muttered to herself. The Doctor glared at her, as his former self looked up at him.

“What?” asked her Doctor.

“Oh, nothing,” Ace muttered.

“Do you know where the change occurs?” her Doctor asked.

“Well, there was a referendum in Britain in 2016, June, there would be a good place to start,” the Doctor replied.

“But how? How did the xenophobes win it and how did the fascists highjack the result, h’m?” the younger Doctor thought aloud.

“I suppose you could just go back to 1896 and prevent that hate filled rag the Daily Mail ever being published.”

The shorter Doctor regarded his tall, skinny future incarnation with surprise, then took his white hat off and reached up to hit his future self on the head with it. “Idiot, that’s the sort of pointless meddling the Monk does! Take down the Mail; it would only get replaced with some other hate filled lying nonsense. No, we have to stop it and others using it to influence people to find hatred of the other normal and rational. I have my ideas.”

“The Monk? Now there’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time.”

“You need to rescue your TARDIS Doctor, leave the time meddling to us. I’ll forgive you your haziness on temporal mechanics down to the stress of what you’ve been through.” He reached up and booped the older Doctor on the nose and smiled. “Take care of yourself Doctor. Come on Ace.”

The Doctor straightened up and watched his younger self and Ace walk away into the shadows. “Likewise,” he called. “Bye Ace.” He turned to go in the opposite direction and as he did so he heard,

“Did you just boop your own nose, Professor?”

“Yes Ace. I think I did.”

“Will he make it, do you think?”

“Oh yes, you see, I’ve already met him in China.”

“Oh yeah, of course. That’s why we’ve been tracking him! Can’t you ever do anything normal, you know, in the right order?”

But they were too far for the Doctor to hear his reply. Except it wasn’t really him, was it? But another Doctor entirely. He made his way painfully back to the main road and a tram back to the small hotel room and sleep. He was so exhausted. He couldn’t remember feeling so tired.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: the Doctor is goosed (but rescued by Ace)  
> TW: the Doctor is beaten up (but again, rescued by Ace)


	23. On the Trans Siberian Express: Leaving Europe the continent

The Doctor woke to the clanging of heavy engines breaking and the sounds of people chatting excitedly. He had slept so heavily, which wasn’t like him at all. He wished he could tap into the reserves of artron energy of the other Doctor’s TARDIS. That would surely solve the problem. Again there was the sudden pressure on his bladder. He slipped off his bunk and rushed out, not bothering to dress. He was wearing pale blue pyjama trousers he’d picked up in Moscow, and a dark blue tee shirt.

It was daylight outside the train. Or rather, what passed for daylight under the dust clouds of Iceland’s volcanoes. The train was pulling into a small station of Omsk. It was over ten hours since he had presented himself at Yaroslavski Station late Tuesday night, clutching his fake Chinese passport, courtesy of the younger Master, and the first class ticket, courtesy of this younger self. Immigration and Customs had cleared him with some tiny bit of stress, or rather, quite a big bit of stress. His bag, when checked, had caused the sour faced young woman in her smart green uniform to raise a curious eyebrow at the soft toy rabbit nestling among the clean tops and underwear, the paperback novels, the dried noodles and soups, the biscuits and crackers, and teabags and powdered milk, the Doctor had packed for his seven day journey. Her colleague, however, had been deeply mistrustful of his complete lack of devices.

“No phone?” she demanded coldly.

“No,” the Doctor shook his head, trying to smile charmingly.

“No tablet? Laptop? Nothing? Not even a Kindle or Ninetendo?”

“Nope. Sorry. Prefer this,” the Doctor tapped the side of his head and smiled hopefully.

“H’m,” she growled. She insisted on an X-Ray and scan and full body search, for which she had to call a male colleague.

The Doctor glanced at the approaching male guard and looked to the younger woman then her suspicious supervisor, “Can’t you?” he asked desperately. The man was tall, beefy, and strong, Slavic featured and very, very blond.

“Don’t be kinky,” the suspicious immigration officer said angrily.

The other woman, the younger one who had raised an eyebrow at Fizzallundra, looked at him thoughtfully. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“I... I...I... er... um...” the Doctor stuttered, frozen, looking down. He began to shake.

The woman, who had about to get him into the X-Ray screen and scanner, scowled at him, waved the scanner wand over his wrist instead. “Pull back your sleeve,” she said, more softly.

The Doctor did so, protesting as he did so, “I was forced into this. I didn’t choose. I woke up with it in. They drugged me. Please. Please. I have a fresh start.”

All three officers looked like they had heard it all before, and believed it all before, and disapproved of the EuroCombine chip. 

“How did you get the passport?” the younger women officer said, tapping his passport, open on the desk.

“Head hunted, wasn’t I?” the Doctor smiled again, hopefully winningly. “I’m clever, I am. I’ve been employed by CNSA for the Shenzhou Project. I’m on my way to Shanghai. They’re taking me to Base 27,” the Doctor whispered conspiratorially. “They gave me the ticket and the passport. I used to work for ESA, but when Britain...” he shuddered, then raised his wrist and waved it at them. “They promised to take this away as soon as I arrive. Please...” he began again, looking at them with big, pleading, brown eyes.

The older woman, the senior officer, nodded. He had certainly sounded truthful. He wasn’t even the first head hunted out of the camps in Europe by China or India. 

Meanwhile, the Doctor was so relieved not only that he understood enough of what had been happening to British and European politics, but that he had listened enough to Yu to bluff it out on how the Chinese Space Programs worked.

She nodded again and grimaced in what the Doctor took to be sympathy. “Nevertheless, you will have to have the body search. I’ve ordered it on reasonable grounds of suspicion. It’s procedure Dr. Smith.”

Fortunately the Doctor bit back the ‘who’s that’ forming on his lips.

“I’ll go too, as chaperone, if you feel threatened due to your... experiences,” the younger one said.

The Doctor hugged himself, bit his lips, and nodded.

It had been swift, gentle, and entirely professional, and he was cleared of all suspicion, the X-Ray and full scan fortunately forgotten, and was finally free to find his berth abroad the Number 4 Train, known globally as the Trans-Siberian Express. As he had a berth to himself, one side was made up as a bed, the backwards bunk, the forward facing one, the other, left as a sofa, with cushions. Both top bunks were left bare and empty. A small table was under the window, and small lights were over both bunks, as well as a main one in the ceiling. The carriage itself had toilets and shower rooms one end and a large samovar, providing permanent hot water, the other. The Doctor had used the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and made a cup of tea, then got ready for bed. He felt so tired, so unnaturally tired, and he couldn’t stop shaking like a leaf. Not only were his hands shaking, but every muscle was quivering and trembling. Every time he thought he was doing fine, a human male left him feeling afraid and his mind full of flashbacks, playing on a loop in his brain.

He lay there a long time, listening to the clack clack of the wheels on the track, and feeling comforted slowly by the sway of the carriage, before they finally lulled him to sleep.

*

“Are you not stretching your legs?” a rich, dark voice said in his ear as the Doctor stood by the window next to the shower rooms, looking out at the small town, its white buildings and golden and blue domes, spires, and roofs covering in a frosting of dirty off-white snow, probably once very pretty and charming, but now all was covered in the greasy, dusty, oily patina of the pumice, dust, and ash that was all that was left of Iceland.

The Doctor looked around, startled. A large man, taller than him, and broad, was standing next to him, dressed only in a towel, holding a black leather toiletry bag, expensive looking and probably designer, proclaiming status and wealth, in a man otherwise dressed only in a short fluffy white towel around his waist. Before he could prevent himself, the Doctor caught himself looking at the man’s pecs and abs. He stopped himself, angry with his baser side, stepping back and hugging himself tightly. There was so little space to go backwards, he was pressing himself into the side of the train, its wall and window.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” the man said in a gentle southern African accent. “I’m TJ. I think I’m in the berth next to you. I just wanted to say hi.”

The Doctor stared, wide-eyed and nodded slightly. TJ glanced at the tattoo, and smiled again. “Just to say hi, okay. It’s a long journey and I think we are the only ones travelling alone in this carriage, perhaps the whole train. I just wanted to say hi,” he repeated gently.

The Doctor nodded again, mute with atavistic fear of the human male.

“Okay, I’ll see you around when you’re more awake.”

The Doctor shivered. It wasn’t exactly warm and no doubt TJ was also cold. He watched TJ walk away to his berth, which was indeed next to his, and then he rushed to his own and bolted the door. He dressed quickly: tee shirt, shirt, jumper, coat, jeans, socks, and sneakers. As many layers as possible. He then curled up in a foetal ball and hugged his rabbit tightly.

What was wrong with him?

*

Later that day there was a tap on the door of his berth.

“Hi. It’s me. TJ. I was just going to the dining car. It’s boring eating alone. Might I treat you?”

The Doctor stared at the door.

“No strings. Conversation. Seven days is a long time to talk to no one.”

The Doctor stumbled to his feet and opened the door. TJ stood there, in what the Doctor didn’t doubt was expensive, designer, chinos in grey, and a button down, deep olive green, shirt, covered by a brown tweed jacket. He was holding a tea glass on a tray.

“I made you tea. Bush tea. From my own plantation, I might add. Of course, we really need a pot, a cup, and a saucer, but when in Rome. Or Russia. Is that a smile? Might I come in?”

The Doctor stood back and sat back down on his bed. TJ came in and sat opposite, on the sofa, and handed the Doctor the tea.

“Thank you,” the Doctor said softly.

“No problem. Uh! ‘War And Peace’!” TJ said, picking up the paperback.

“It’s a long journey,” the Doctor smiled slightly.

“Uh huh! Tell me about it. Especially alone. I do this several times a year. Two jobs. Two hats, as it were,” TJ tipped an imaginary hat, laughing widely and happily. He grew more serious. “Look, I see you are very very sad and unhappy. I can guess many, many bad things have happened to you. But please, I’m just looking for a friend on this long journey. Trust me, I’m straight, but even if I weren’t, I’m married. I love my wife and I take my vows seriously.”

The Doctor staring, unblinking.

“I saw your EuroZone brand. Disgusting. I’m not judging you, I mean the trap, the law. In the AfricaZone, if a person has to, you know, uh huh, has to sell themselves as they have no choice, no money, they can pay their way, save, pay to study, set up a business, get themselves out. They are not trapped for life.” TJ clicked his tongue in disgust, then leaned forward and smiled again. “Can we start again? I’m Professor TJ Matebeli. I’m also now owner and manager of my family lands in Botswana. But that is a sad, sad story. I’ve just been in Star City, consultancy work. Now, that is a happy story, doing what I love.” He grinned. “Ever watch Star Trek?”

“Quantum physics or warping space-time around you?” the Doctor asked, sitting up straighter. “I’m the Doctor, by the way.” He ran a hand through his floppy hair and it immediately began to stand on ends.

“Are you a scientist too? Before Britain’s economy collapsed and...?” TJ asked, trailing off.

“And its state collapsed too, you mean?” the Doctor added.

“You’re talking to an African. We know all about collapsing economies, hyperinflation, puffed up egos of monsters corrupting their governments. Well, not me, not personally. I’m from Botswana. Ever been to Botswana?”

“Not recently,” the Doctor replied, adding mentally, not since it was called Botswana, or any name. Not for about 20,000 years ago of so. “So,” he asked, “you’re a professor of...?”

“Quantum physics, theoretical physics, sub-atomic physics. And because we in Africa don’t split the spiritual and the physical, I have a degree in metaphysics too. So, tiny, tiny, tiny bits of matter, moving from one moment of space-time to another, existing at a level most people call magic or imaginary. Occupying the same place at the same time, to do that they cross this empty sub-reality. I call it interstitial space, the bit in-between two simultaneous existences in two points in space-time. That’s my thing. Most people have glazed over or switched off or called me crazy by now Doctor...”

The Doctor grinned so widely. “Matter transference. You’re talking of matter transference!”

TJ stared for a moment, not quite believing he was believed and understood, then he grinned a face-splitting smile. “Clever boy!” he said. “Please can I buy you lunch?”

The Doctor smiled back. “Of course.”

TJ stood up. “The only question for now is – Chinese or Russian?”

There were two dining cars on the train.

*

TJ had a real gift for quantum mechanics, backed up with theoretical physics, and because he was an African and not given to the compartmentalization that had cursed and stagnated the west, metaphysics. His genius took the Doctor’s breath away. He had never even heard of him. He had taken the early work of the quantum state of certain photons, existing in two separate places, and figured out how to bore a hole in what he called (correctly) interstitial space, a quantum realm that existed below the actual matter which warped space-time. So far he was still only moving around photons and electrons, and was trying desperately to get ESA or the Chinese to fund his research. The Russians had a passing interest, and the other space agencies ignored him. He wasn’t so much interested in moving people or in space exploration, but in moving freight, given half the planet now had to rely now on the slow moving container trains of miles long, as container shipping was hardly ever possible across the Atlantic and the clouds of ash and dust were still spreading, even as they dispersed. It was, after all, the invisible particles that could clog up the jet engines of a plane. Commercial flights in the east and south, over the Pacific, were still subject to cancellation and delay, depending on the skies particle status.

The Doctor had a vague memory of such as system, so successful, that humans had forgotten their rocket technology, consigned them to the dustbin of history, much to their own downfall when the Ice Warriors decided to poke their noses in and try to Martia-form the Earth. Well, would have been, if he, Jamie, and Zoe hadn’t happened to arrive. But he didn’t remember hearing the name TJ Matebeli. He remembered a rather haughty woman, a... Ms Gia Kelly, who had controlling shares, was a managing director, and claimed to be the world’s expert in the T-Mat. Then there had been the Transit System, a generation later, after the Martian War, in the early 2100s. Interstitial Tube Trains connecting not only the whole planet, but also the entire colonised solar system. All that was to stem from this amazing man buying him lunch and talking with such animation about boring holes in interstitial space so he could transmit shielded containers of freight from one city to another anywhere on the planet in an instant!

“You’re amazing TJ,” the Doctor grinned. “Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.”

TJ flushed dark red under his deep chocolate brown skin. “Thank you Doctor, but you can’t be far off genius, you’ve grasped my concepts in seconds, far more than anyone else has. Still. To this day.”

“Have you, er, oh I don’t know,” the Doctor rubbed his eye, and smiled again, “considered approaching a freight conglomerate, or a shipping magnate. Or, I don’t know... Amazon?”

TJ looked stunned for a moment, before a grin spread across his broad face. “You are a genius!”

“Ooh, you know, I try,” the Doctor tried to look abashed.

*

After lunch, TJ retired to his cabin to work and talk to his wife, and the Doctor wandered the length of the train. He and TJ did seem to be the only ones travelling alone, everyone else was in family groups or couples, mostly Chinese businessmen or women who had brought their families with them, or Russians going on holiday, or tourists such as richer Africans, Indians, South Americans, Polynesians, and Asians of all kinds. He saw few Europeans, and no Arabs. The other white humans were from Australia or New Zealand, with the occasional Canadian. The days of everyone travelling seemed to be a thing of the past.

The pressure on his bladder and the pain in his back, along with the heavy exhaustion in his legs, never seemed to abate. He still couldn’t work out what was wrong with him. He was suspected they were physical responses to emotional trauma, although he had been raped before, beaten up before – worse, even, tortured, mind raped, possessed, and he had never reacted such a way before. He assumed it was all the rape and abuse all piled on top of one another in a short space of time.

He retired to bed in his cabin extremely early, with more tea and biscuits and his novel, but unlike his usual self, he was asleep within moments.

*

The following morning TJ awoke him with another cup of strong bush tea, sweetened with honey, an expensive luxury, given the dead and missing bees in Europe and North America. The honey was naturally from TJ’s own apiaries. The Doctor sat up, grateful, and sipped it slowly, as he was now feeling queasy. He had had uneasy dreams and flashbacks he couldn’t awaken from.

TJ pulled up the blinds and the Doctor looked out.

“Siberia,” TJ said, “we’ve three days of it, so get used to it. Once an icy tundra at best, a frozen waste at worst, the place for generations of Russian autocrats and dictators to hide their opposition, exiled and imprisoned with no hope of escape. But look at it now.”

“But... but that’s wheat. Fields and fields of wheat? And... is that sunlight? It doesn’t feel natural, it’s refracted, like shining the sunlight through a magnifying glass to light a fire as a child...”

“Yes. Wheat. Plus barley and corn and vegetables of many, many kinds. Salamander’s Suncatcher in action. Surely you’ve heard of it?”

The Doctor rubbed the back of his head, remembering. Somewhere on the other side of the world, it was possible that there was a very young version of him with Jamie and Victoria. Dear Victoria. Jamie.

Ah, Jamie...

“Yeah. Little bit. What do you think of him, then? This Salamander?”

TJ looked thoughtful for a moment. “I think he is a very clever man, a genius at gravimetrics and meteorology, but he is also a very, very, ambitious man, who has his eye on fusing all the World Zones and the UN into one government, under his own leadership.”

“A dangerous man then?”

“Oh yes. More so that we’re seeing at the moment, at the moment they are little tin pot dictators.”

“Tin pot dictators with nuclear arms.”

TJ shuddered. “So true. Look at poor Korea and Iran. But sometimes conventional ones are enough, look at the former oil fields, look at what was Syria and Iraq, look at the remains of Saudi and Yemen. Half the world is burning, half the world is under ash clouds or in a nuclear winter. People love a man like Salamander, a man to save the world from itself.”

“You could...”

“Me. My work will be completed by others, we are decades away from my dream. Hundreds maybe. All I want to do is have funding and in the meantime, look after my daughter and wife and the baby inside, and care for the family lands. My elder brother, he was a player, you know, he loved the ladies until the disease took him, you know the one?”

The Doctor looked so puzzled, TJ explained all about AIDS and HIV, horrified that he could have been a prostitute with having no idea. The Doctor looked sheepish, and rubbed at his hair again, pulling it in all sorts of directions.

“Well, truth is... truth is...” he looked at TJ then shook his head. “Nah, never mind.”

“What Doctor? What is the truth?”

“I’m not exactly human. Well, not at all really. I’m from another planet. The Chinese stole my... um, space ship, and left me in Europe with this,” he tapped his tattoo with his right index finger. He looked up, wondering what he would see in TJ’s eyes.

“Ah,” TJ replied calmly, completely unshaken. The man really was a genius! “No wonder you understood me. I must seem like an infant to you,” he said thoughtfully.

“No. No, not at all TJ. Not a bit. Not one tiny bit. You’re awesome, you are. Brilliant.”

“Don’t tell me anything, will you. I want to get there on my own. Unlike the Chinese, I can tell. They’d do anything to overtake the Indians and land on Mars first. They launched a module last year, it was supposed to gravity bounce and accelerate to half light speed, but it vanished, blown up I suppose. They’ve shut down since then, pulled out of all collaboration and data sharing.”

The Doctor smiled widely. “It didn’t blow up. Not quite.”

“I guess you’re on your way to try to reclaim your ship?”

“Absolutely, TJ, oh yes. I don’t suppose you can help me? Could you?”

TJ looked so sorry as he spoke, “An adventure. It sounds amazing. But I have a business transit visa. I meet my business partners – they buy my tea and beef, I own many many cattle now – and then fly out to Gaborone. I can’t risk losing the rights to travel; I need to find backing for my research. Besides, my wife is due soon, and I want to be home.”

The Doctor nodded sadly, “Of course you do. I’m sorry for asking.”

TJ left him, to work, but came back to take him for lunch. They sat all afternoon in the Russian dining carriage, drinking glasses of tea and watching the golden wheat fields sail by. The train stopped for a longer break at Novosibirsk, the largest city in Siberia, and they explored the station and small bit of the town. Now TJ knew, the Doctor told TJ about his journey with Marco Polo when he was young, with his granddaughter.

Susan! This was a parallel world; Susan was out there somewhere, a short hop a century and a bit into the future. He suddenly felt ashamed for not understanding the pull on Rose and Mickey.

*

The next couple of days stayed the same. TJ brought the Doctor a morning cup of tea, they chatted, TJ worked and was careful not to say too much to the Doctor, as he wanted to, as he said, get there on his own. Then they went for lunch. The Doctor continued to feel ill and sleepy all the time. He tried so many times to read ‘War And Peace’, and every time he dozed, so he switched to the paperback chic fic he’d bought, a silly romance about a thirty something who’s life was changed beyond recognition when her friend died and she inherited her children. She lost her job, moved to the country, and of course found the love of a perfect, gorgeous, man. The next station he picked up a couple more of the trashy things by the same author.

On the fourth morning TJ woke with a grin on his face, and flipped back the blind as he handed the Doctor his tea. Light streamed in. Not broken, fractured, reflected light, shining on fields of wheat and vegetables while leaving many places still in the dark, but soft, diffuse sunlight, gentled by layers of atmosphere and broken by fluffy white clouds in a blue sky. The Doctor got up, placed his tea on the table and pressed his nose to the glass like an excited child looking for snow at Christmas.

“Sky!” he cried. “Real sky!”

All along the train, everyone, even the staff, were doing the same, stopping what they were doing and marvelling at the blue sky and white clouds, at the world it was meant to be, before humans had messed it up.

 

*

 

At lunch, Chinese for a change, there was a sudden feel of something in the air, as people began to mutter in shock, in anger, in fear, as more and more people were looking at their phones, tablets, and laptops. The Chef de Train walked through, stopping to switch over the large TV screens each end of the carriage, which had been silently just giving info on the train, its journey and the sights.

The news came on.

A massive earthquake, over 7 on the Richter Scale, along with the eruption of three previously thought defunct volcanoes had erupted, in Hungary. The news was showing scenes of devastation. The death toll was rising through the roof.

Unobserved by anyone but the driver, the train rattled it’s way across the small land bridge that officially, far south-east beyond the Urals, separated Europe from Asia, slipping silently from one continent into another. By the evening, when the train pulled into Naushki on the Russian border for another break, no one on the train was interested in exploring, they were too busy watching with morbid fascination as the death toll rose, as Salamander blamed the EuroCombine Environment Minister and the UN Secretary of the Environment, claiming he had warned them days before and they had chosen not to evacuate. His companies were leading the donations to the aid agencies. He seemed to be equally popular and mistrusted by the people on the train and in Naushki.

For the Doctor, who had long ago already dealt with Salamander’s ambition, all that mattered was he had left Europe and was in Asia, a day and a half away from Beijing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> References to ‘Marco Polo’, ‘the Seeds of Death’, the Virgin New Adventure ‘Transit’, and ‘The Enemy of the World’, which of course contains Salamander, who is responsible for the devastation of Hungary that occurs at the end.
> 
> This novel was brought about by two things, a reoccurring dream I had back in about 2008 or 2009 which featured the Tenth Doctor trapped, alone, having to journey through a dystopian Europe, the sky black and full of ash, with refugees and homeless everywhere. Dreadful things happened to him. The EU or Eurozone (a phrase from Enemy of the World) that I have written and even the things that happen are far less dark than the reoccurring nightmare of all that time ago.
> 
> However, the novel really began as a tonic to the new nightmares that began soon after the 24th June 2016 and really were not helped in the least over the last year and a bit, the Daily Mail and Sun, and the ministers of May’s govt, frequently quoting Mein Kampf, the increased hate crimes, of which I have been a victim, the increased discourse and denial of residency rights for many EU citizens who still have the absolute right to be in the UK, along with draconian actions taken against non EU immigrants (and in some cases children and grandchildren who have lived nowhere else) who have lived here for decades and have British spouses and children, who have been deported or detained. All this is already happening. To say nothing of the growing horrors the other side of the Atlantic. In the meantime, in three different elections, other European countries have rejected fascism, racism, xenophobia and hatred in their elections. So there is a little light, although Germany was a little disappointing...
> 
> I wrote my nightmare vision so it may not come true.
> 
> My thanks to moth2fic and BabyKlingon for the beta and suggestions, along with the lovely, supportive rejection email for a slightly different version of this from the BBC Books New Series Adventures (with a suggestion I try a less controversial Classic Doctor story – as the Classic series are always happy to look at unsolicited mss). Credit too to Mr Wikipedia, Mr Google, and the entire Geography section of my daughter’s home ed bookcase and the local library.
> 
> The journey will continue with Crossing China.


End file.
